


Static

by RainingPens



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Aunt May can't cook, BAMF Peter Quill, BAMF Tony Stark, Civil War Fix-It, F/M, M/M, Peter Quill Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Tony Being Tony, Tony Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs Sleep, also the major death is off screen?, diverges right in the middle of the battle on Titan, gets very gay, naturally, not too one-sided with the whole civil war thing?, the guardians are a family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-06-05 11:31:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15169811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainingPens/pseuds/RainingPens
Summary: "No don't- don't engage!" Tony yelled, frantically pulling harder on the Infinity Gauntlet. "We almost got this off!"As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew it was useless. He could see the despair and anger on Quill's face, and Tony's first thought was that he probably looked like that back on Siberia, before everything went to shit. Which was why Tony opted to shoot Quill instead.





	1. The Dust Settles

**Author's Note:**

> A "what if" take on the whole fight on Titan, and everything that happens after.

“He...he mourns!” Mantis said, anguish written on her face.

“Bullshit!” Peter hissed, his eyes focused hatefully at Thanos as he struggled helplessly against the trap they wove him into. “What does this monster have to mourn?"

“He took her to Vormir.” Nebula said, her voice small. “He came back with the Soul Stone.”

He didn’t like how quiet everything became. He turned to Nebula, wishing desperately that she’d stop talking. He could hear himself breathing with how quiet it was, he could hear his heartbeat quicken in his chest as he braced himself for-

“She didn’t.”

He slowly turned back to Thanos, her words bouncing around in his head until all he could hear was himself. He couldn't have killed her, he can't have. He wanted to scream and cry, he desperately wanted to tell Nebula that she must’ve been wrong, but the look on Thanos’ face told him everything. He could hear someone talking, but it sounded like they were underwater.

“I...had to.” Thanos rasped.

Peter’s grip on his gun tightened and his hand flew towards Thanos. Suddenly, he felt an excruciating pain in his side that sent him flying. There was barely a second of weightlessness before he felt his head hit the ground and everything blacked out.

* * *

 

He woke with a start, sitting up immediately. He regretted it just as quickly, feeling a throbbing pain in the back of his head. He looked around and saw the familiar interior of his ship. Mantis was in front of him, her worried expression morphing into a wide grin now that he was awake.

“Mantis,” he said, placing a hand gently on what was definitely a new lump on the back of his head. “What happened?” She looked behind her, to Iron Man, who was less Iron and more Man now, with all his armor gone. He was working on patching a definitely new hole in the side of his ship.

“He shot you.” Mantis said apologetically. “You were about to attack Thanos when he blasted you with his armor. He said to tell you that he was sorry.”

Peter followed her gaze, and opened his mouth to say something, but no words came. His thoughts felt murky at best, and he could barely recall most of the fight against Thanos. The only thing he could remember clearly was his anger when-

Suddenly, his head felt lighter, and he could see Mantis in front of him, her antennae glowing. “Peter-“ she began, her hand on his, but he immediately pulled it away from her. She looked shocked, which he felt a stab of guilt for, but he could feel his own emotions clearly again. He could feel the echo of his anger towards Thanos, and the aching despair that clawed at the edges of his mind. Gamora was-

He suddenly found it too hard to think. He looked at Mantis, silently pleading for her to tell her that everything was ok, that they found Gamora after defeating Thanos. He hated the pitiful look he got in return. “

I’m sorry.” Mantis said gently, before standing up to leave. She approached Iron Man and whispered something to him, and then they both left without another word.

Once again he was alone, and everything was quiet. Too quiet. He could hear his heart beating dully in his chest. He could hear his shallow breaths giving way to broken sobs that echoed pitifully in the empty room, reminding him that he was all alone.

* * *

 

 He must’ve fallen asleep, because when he looked out the window darkness had fallen. “Got your beauty sleep?” A voice said from his left, and he turned to see Iron Man sitting by his bed. He stared at Tony - he remembers the name being mentioned by one of his companions - quietly, not sure what to say to that. Maybe a few days ago he would’ve been able to banter lightheartedly with the almost stranger, but that was then.

“Mantis was supposed to, uh. Fill you in, the first time you woke up.” Tony said, seemingly unfazed by the lack of a response. “She was supposed to be here when you woke up again, but she’s off helping Drax with something, so I’m here.”

Tony looked at him, as if expecting a response, but Peter could only stare blankly at his own hands, wishing sorely the other man would leave him alone. “Just in case you were wondering, we did beat Thanos. After I shot you. Sorry, by the way.” Tony kept talking, oblivious to Peter’s inner turmoil. “I’ve been there, you know. Losing control because you find out you lost someone-

Peter grimaced, his fists clenching tightly around his sheets.

“-kinda why I shot you. I would’ve tried talking you out of it but...I get it. Losing someone isn’t easy. Never is.” He could feel Tony’s gaze on him, and he wished he would leave.

“Well, that’s all I had to say.” Tony said, raising his hands in a mock surrender. “I’ll be out of your hair now.” He waited for Tony to leave, but Tony just sat there, his attention now fixated on a holographic screen projected from his watch.

Peter sighed, falling back into the bed. He closed his eyes, trying to sleep despite the occassional noise from Tony’s hologram in the background.

* * *

The next time he woke up, the first thing he did was get out of bed. He could feel his heart racing from the dream that he was already starting to forget, but the fear was definitely still there. He paused momentarily, noticing that Tony was gone. He walked out into the rest of the ship, his feet carrying him out before he could even figure out where he wanted to go.

He was startled when he ran into Nebula, who was sitting where Gamora usually is. Was. Her chair. The sight of it ignited a familiar anger within him, and before he could tell Nebula to get the hell away from there, she turned to meet his gaze. Her expression seemed to challenge him, daring him to say something, and he could already see them escalating into a loud argument that would draw whoever else was outside back in, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to see everybody else.

Instead, he sat in his seat, eyes glued forward. It was still night in Titan, and he could faintly make out the wreckage that decorated the planet. They stayed like that for awhile, long enough for the silence to become too much again. He tried to focus on the sound of his breathing, but hearing his breathing come out shaky and uneven made him even angrier, until-

“She was my sister.” Nebula said, her gaze fixated on the control pad in front of her. “Don’t be so stupid that you think you’re alone in your grief.”

That made him stop thinking, instead he found himself focusing on whatever Nebula was saying.

“She was my sister.” she repeated. “She was yours, and the rest of your team was her family. I know your pain. They know your pain too.” “You don’t have to be alone for this. Not unless you want to. Do you?” He found himself shaking his head automatically at her question, and he flinched at the look she gave him next.

“Well I do. Now get the hell out of here.”

And so he got the hell out of there. 

* * *

He had finished helping Tony make the last of the repairs to make the ship space-worthy again, when a fucking rainbow beam shot down from the sky and spat out Thor, Rocket, Groot, and a whole ensemble of people he couldn’t recognize. They all looked battle ready, and were definitely not expecting to see Tony and Peter working on a space ship on Thanos’ home planet.

“Tony?” one of them said, approaching them both. He could only describe the stranger as a blond lumberjack with high-tech armor, and boy did he look confused. Beside him, Tony froze.

Whatever Tony was going to say was lost in Groot and Rocket running towards him, with Rocket looking angrily at the stranger touching his ship. “I’m gone for one day. ONE DAY Quill, and now you have some humie messing with our ship?” he barked, and Tony looked at Rocket, then to Quill.

“Listen, why don’t you go meet up with Drax and Mantis back in the ship. Oh, and our other new friends too, I’m sure they know each other.” Rocket looked at him with an expression of disbelief, before muttering something that suspiciously sounded like ‘Rocket do this, Rocket do that!’

“Tony.” lumberjack said, grabbing all of their attention. “Where’s Thanos?” Tony looked around the empty wasteland that was Titan, before casually replying, “Dead.”

* * *

The lumberjack - Steve, he finds out later - somehow gathers all of them for a meeting so that Peter and the others could fill them in on what happened. There was a few seconds of silence after Tony filled him in, thankfully omitting the part where Tony had to shoot Peter to save the mission. He figured that after a story like that, the natural thing to do was party, but Steve retained his serious expression and asked: “What about the Infinity Stones?”

“Gone with the gauntlet. First and the last thing I did with it.” Tony said simply, snapping his fingers. “Just like that.”

“Just like that.” Steve echoed in disbelief.

“Honestly though, if I knew you guys could just teleport here I never would’ve bothered with the ship.” Tony said, although he didn’t seem too annoyed.

“Why didn’t you just use the Gauntlet to poof you guys back to Terra?” Rocket asked, and everyone in the room seemed curious to hear the answer. Tony seemed frozen under the scrutiny, but only for a fraction of a second.

“Does it matter?” he said. “It’s gone now. Can we just go back home and be done with our space adventure? This whole trip has been a nightmare.”

After that, they continued to grill everyone for details, much to Tony’s disappointment. Eventually, Thor volunteered to bring everyone home with his fancy new axe, as a parting gift before he left to find the last of his people. Everyone but the Guardians found themselves grouping up to rainbow back to Earth, leaving Peter with the rest of his team to plan out their next trip.

“Y’know Quill, we haven’t been to Terra yet, have we?” Rocket said, elbowing him roughly. He really had to teach Rocket about subtlety one day.

“No.” he replied, watching them get ready. “Don’t we have...space stuff to do though?”

“Ah, c’mon then!” Rocket said, beginning to run towards Thor and the others. “We deserve a little vacation.”

“I am Groot.” Groot agreed, before following after Rocket.

“I would very much like to see this dirt planet of yours.” Drax agreed, with Mantis following closely behind him.

“Guys-“ Peter said, but apparently he was talking to nobody since they had all joined the rest of the Avengers. They all looked at him expectantly, with Rocket calling him to join them impatiently. Tony was looking at him as if he was holding up their ride, which he technically was. “Fuck it.” 

* * *

First thing they considered when they got beamed down to Terra was to find a place to stay. Tony dropped himself into the conversation after overhearing, and he offered them a home at the old Avengers compound. “We don’t really use it anymore.” was all Tony would say when Peter asked why it was empty, so he didn’t press the matter.

Tony was helping them settle into their own rooms when Rocket suddenly cursed, loud enough for him to hear from his end of the hallway. “Fuck! Quill, our ship is still on the ass end of Titan!”

Peter found himself laughing, Rocket’s sudden realization on top of everything that had happened apparently pushed him to what must’ve looked like insanity. Tony laughed with him after a second, and Rocket was giving them the stink eye. Tony assured them once Thor was back, he’d get him to transport them back to Titan so they could have their shit back. Until then, they were going to be here.

They had settled into a routine after awhile, with the Guardians exploring the massive compound most of the day. Whenever they had to eat, the nice lady voice in the building would tell them food was prepared for them in the dining area, and then they’d make a game of finding their way back through the labyrinth of a building. Groot could be found outside, still glued to new StarkPad Tony gave him, but Rocket claimed that the fact that he was outside was an improvement. Drax made good use of the training rooms, with Mantis joining in occasionally. Rocket and Peter joined Tony in the workshop whenever he was there, and they’d trade their space tech for some of Tony’s. Rocket claimed it was too primitive for him, but he kept working with Tony anyway, and Tony had gifted Quill with what he called a ‘brand new old’ Walkman, which immediately replaced his Zune. Tony had to tell Quill to shut up after the fortieth ‘thank you’, threatening to take the Walkman back if he didn’t.

Some nights, Peter would go out of his room and stay in the living room, keeping the TV on some random channel for background noise. Sometimes, the other Guardians would ‘accidentally’ find him at three in the morning, but he didn’t mind. More often than not, they had movie marathons on everything sci-fi, and they’d have fun poking holes in the logic and wishing some of it was true.

There were times when they felt the absence too sharply, when Rocket and Peter would stop bickering as they expected someone to stop them, or when Drax would loudly complain about the lack of a sparring partner before they all went silent. It was always Groot who broke their unspoken silence first, usually saying that he missed her. Someone else would agree and then someone else would share a story with Gamora at the center of it, and then they’d be laughing until they weren’t. Then they would grieve together until they left for their rooms one by one.

Peter was always the last to go.

Tony had come back to the compound on such a night, where everyone else had gone back to bed and Peter was alone with the TV. He told Peter to move over and make space for him, and he did so wordlessly. Tony rambled about how his day went and how he was working towards getting his other teammates pardoned for some crime he didn’t exactly understand. Peter barely responded, and Tony didn’t seem to mind. Eventually, Peter finds sleep too hard to fight back and for the first time since they went to Terra, he wasn’t the last to go to bed.

The week after, Tony found his hands full with Avengers business, smoothing over the damages caused by Thanos’ attack on Terra. Peter realized that if Tony wasn’t at the compound, then he was on TV talking to a bunch of angry reporter. They decided to conveniently omit the part where they saved the whole universe and stuck with a few major damages in a city here and there instead. Tony would often let Quill accompany him if he asked, and then they would go do ‘Earth things’ that he missed out on.

Tony wanted him to see how far Earth music had come, so after a rather nasty press conference regarding his involvement with the recent alien invasion, they went to a music store. “These are kind of obsolete nowadays, since everythings on the internet but-“

“Where are the cassettes?” Quill asked, interrupting him. He was seeing a lot of CDs of people and bands he didn’t recognize, which would’ve been fine, but none of them would fit in his Walkman. Begrudgingly, Tony took him to a vintage music store, muttering something about Peter’s prehistoric tastes the whole time, but that didn’t stop Peter from walking out of the store with a whole bag of new cassettes to listen to on his Walkman.

Tony brought him to the shooting range in the compound one day, and Peter realized its the first time he’s held his blaster since Thanos. He realized it when he’s gloating over his questionable victory in their little competition, and Tony just rolls his eyes and claims he was holding back.

* * *

He’s about to go out into the living room to listen to whatever was on TV until the last remnants of his nightmares left him when he saw Tony lounging on the couch, an opened yet untouched bottle of vodka sitting on the table. Peter only froze for a second before he sat down with Tony, with a respectable distance between them. He was watching Wall-E, and the little robot had turned on his TV to listen to that adorable song from the 60’s. He glanced at Tony, seeing that the man was pointedly not looking at him or the bottle on the table.

Peter wasn’t sure what to say, or if he should talk, so he watched the movie. He found himself humming along to the song, smiling as he did. He already watched this last week with the Guardians, and he had a giant soft spot for the scenes with the old song in it. When the scene finished, he realized Tony was looking at him, and Peter met his gaze. Tony had a contemplating look on his face, as if he was trying to figure Peter out. “You okay there?” Peter finally said, not liking how quiet it was between them.

“Yeah.” Tony said automatically, but then he frowned. “No. I’m not sure.”

“From one grieving man to another, lemme tell you.” he said softly, remembering what Nebula told him. “Being alone for this whole sad thing sucks.” Tony looked at him, as if expecting more, but when it became clear Quill was done talking, he cracked a smile.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Star-Lord.”

* * *

The next day, Tony’s not in the compound and nowhere on the news. He comes back the day after with a genuine smile on his face despite the weight of everything bearing down on him. Peter considered that a win.

* * *

It’s their third week when Thor comes back, and Rocket is all too ready to see the ship again. Everyone’s saying their goodbye to Tony and he finds himself rooted to the ground. They’re going back to Titan to get the ship, and the rest of the Guardians seem to be more than happy with this development but all he can remember is the sudden silence when Thanos confesses that he killed Gamora-

“Hey, Star-Lord.” Tony said, his hand gripping Peter’s shoulder firmly. “You doing okay?”

Peter’s mouth was suddenly dry, and he could feel his team’s gaze on him. “Yeah. Yeah I’m fine.”

“Good.” Tony said, giving him one last squeeze before letting go and taking a step back. “If you’re ever around the neighborhood and need a ship repair or something-“

“Of course we’ll come back to Earth.” Peter said incredulously. “Why wouldn’t we?”

Tony seemed to not be expecting that. He was smiling now. “Oh. Well. See you then.” He was about to turn and leave when Peter hugged him, and he felt Tony freeze underneath him. He eventually relaxed and patted him on the back. “Thanks for everything, Tony. I mean it.”

“This better not be a repeat of me giving you the Walkman.” was all Tony said, and Peter laughed at the deadpan delivery.

He pulled away and joined the rest of the Guardians. Rocket was talking to Thor about an eyeball or something and Drax was chiding Groot about his unfortunate lack of interest in weapons. Mantis smiled at Peter, and he returned the expression. The last thing on his mind before they teleported back to Titan was that at some point, Terra had stopped being Terra, a distant planet that had nothing left for him. Instead, it had become Earth, a planet he hoped he could come back to.

Come home to, even.


	2. What Was Left Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony should feel like a winner right now. After all, they defeated Thanos with almost zero casualties, and the world was none the wiser. So why did it feel like he was losing?

Being a superhero was hard, but cleaning up was even harder, Tony thought. He spent most of the day cementing the new Accords with most of the world’s leaders, something he hoped he wouldn’t have to come back to again. In light of the recent alien invasion and the lack of it within the day, Tony began to push a little bit harder, loosening whatever restrictions he could and smoothing over the whole incident with the first attempt at the Accords.

Three months since his latest space experience and the only thing he had to show for it was ten new Iron Man suits, four of which should be able to function well enough in space, and none of them actually tested yet.

He didn’t have the time, he reasoned, as he always did whenever the topic crossed his mind.

He was walking towards his car when his phone began to ring, and a shadow cast over him and half of the parking lot he was in. He sighed, answering the call. “Hey, yeah I see your ride. And what happened to giving me a heads up first?”

“For the record, this  _is_ a heads up.” Shuri said, and he could hear her smug tone through the phone.

“Back in my day kids were stuck on their phones, not picking up people in their space ships.” Tony grumbled into the phone before dropping the call.

And just like that he was done doing nothing and back into fixing the next of his mess.

When Tony had used the Infinity Gauntlet to destroy itself and all of the Infinty Stones, he never thought about what had to come after. He felt the question hanging in the air back on Titan, when the rest of Earth’s heroes had joined them to fight Thanos.

_Why did you snap the Infinity Gauntlet away?_

_Why didn’t you use it to get back to Earth first?_

_Why didn’t you use it to fix everything?_  

He shivered, remembering when he tried to answer the question, the weight of everyone’s stares on him.

He couldn’t tell them that using the Gauntlet had scared him, more than space or any of his other ghosts could. The few seconds he held the Gauntlet had been enough for him to know what he could do, even without the complete set of the Stones.

The temptation scared him, which was why he broke the Gauntlet and all the Infinity Stones before it could break him.

They entered Wakandan territory now, and Tony never got tired of the way the environment seemed to melt away and give way to the real thing.

They dropped him off and escorted him to the labs, and he froze at the entrance.

Bruce was there with Shuri, looking over their work and talking heatedly about something. He had spent the last few months here, studying with the Wakandans and trying to pick up the slack whenever Tony was gone, which was to say, most of the time.

To Bruce’s left was Wanda Maximoff, an expression of both hope and despair on her face as she waited for something.

Tony walked over to join Bruce and Shuri, who was standing over Vision’s body laid out on the table. Aside from the gaping hole in his head, the only thing that told him Vision was dead that all his color was muted, like a printer tried to print a picture of Vision, but was running dangerously low on ink.

It was tiring work, trying to restore life to what was technically an android that was powered by an Infinity Stone. They told him that the plan was to basically upload Vision into a body that didn’t need the Mind Stone to live, but that was thrown out the window when the Mind Stone suddenly vanished.

It had been months and the best they could do was provide a new and improved body for Vision, but they didn’t have what made him  _him_. None of the memories, the personality, the important stuff. Which was why Tony had the bright idea of bringing Wanda here, though the entire idea was completely theoretical at this point.

“We good to go on this?” Tony asked, and Shuri nodded excitedly.

She placed a clear gem where the Mind Stone used to be, and if you looked closely enough you could see a trillion tiny circuits inside of it. The easiest way to describe it that it was kind of like a USB, where all Vision’s memories - both old and new - would go.

“All we need now is the...everything else.” Bruce said, and he turned to look at Wanda.

She nodded and walked over to them, staring at the hollow Vision laid on the table in front of her.

She opened her hand towards Vision, her eyes closed as the room was suddenly bathed in a red glow. Light poured from her hands and flowed around the room lazily before funnelling into Vision. If Tony squinted he could see scenes within each tendril of...whatever the hell Wanda’s shtick was. He could see her memories of Vision within it, and if he focused on it hard enough, he could feel a faint echo of the memories tied in each event.

After what felt like hours, the only red light in the room was from Vision’s crystal, which was constantly moving around inside of it. Wanda was gasping, as if she had run a marathon, and Steve was at her side and watching Vision’s new gem with a horrified fascination.

“Did...did it work?” Wanda said, straining to keep her breathing steady.

Shuri was keeping her eye on a monitor above Vision, considering it carefully. “Well, the iGem-“

“iGem.” Tony repeated, staring deadpan at Shuri.

“i for Infinity.”

“Couldn’t have called it literally anything else-“

Wanda cleared her throat, and Shuri shot Tony a triumphant look before proceeding, “Well, it seems like it received your powers well enough. I was monitoring the upload, and everything went perfectly.”

“Except he’s not awake yet.” Wanda said.

“Yet.” Shuri repeated. “Right now it’s...processing everything. The memories, the emotions. It might take awhile.”

“How long is awhile?” Wanda asked.

“Well...could be seconds, days, or even weeks. We will try our best to speed things up but as for now, the only thing you can do is wait.” Shuri said.

“I...I see.” Wanda said, looking resigned to even more waiting, but with a new hopeful flame behind her expression. “Thank you. All of you.”

The last part was directed at Tony and Bruce, he realized. Bruce nodded silently, and Tony offered a smile before turning on his heels and leaving.

“Tony.” A voice said, and a second later Wanda was walking with him. “We never had the chance to talk. After everything.”

Tony kept walking, until Wanda grabbed his arm and he suddenly froze. His eyes met hers and that was all the cue Wanda needed to pull away. She was holding her hands up as if she was surrendering, and it took him a second to realize that she was showing him that she wasn’t using her powers. He remembered to breathe after that, and he steeled his expression before he said, “Okay, well here’s our chance. Might wanna hurry though, as shocking as it sounds I actually  _do_ have somewhere I need to be.”

“Okay.” Wanda said, considering Tony carefully, as if she was worried about breaking him. “I wanted to...apologize. For everything. Now that the Accords are months behind us, it has given me time to think. On what Vision said.

“Even if after all this I decide that I want to go back into hiding and live a normal life, I wanted you to know that I am sorry. If the time comes and I still have a place in the Avengers, I would like to sign the Accords.”

After Wanda finished, Tony just stared at Wanda. Out of everything she could’ve said, he wasn’t expecting this. “I...Of course.” was all Tony could eventually say.

“And for the record,” Wanda said, smiling at him. “I am grateful for your help in trying to save my Vision.”

Tony nodded, and with that, she left him alone to stew in his own thoughts again. He left Wakanda that day a little lighter, despite everything else.

* * *

It was midnight now, and he was sitting in the living room with an unopened bottle of wine in front of him and a small box beside it.

He smiled, remembering that the box came after the ring, because Pepper was very adamant about receiving the cliche proposal complete with him getting down on one knee and opening the box to show her the ring she already saw the week before.

He felt pain lance through his chest, and his eyes drifted to the wine. Tony considered calling her for the fifth time that week, and even as he plays with the idea, he knows deep down that he’ll never end up doing it.

In the silence, he remembered how terrified Pepper looked when he came back from space the second time. There was a whole argument about how Tony shouldn’t be hijacking spaceships impulsively and taking it to a planet on the ass end of who knows where. Then it was a whole lot of Pepper crying and then Tony trying to console her but only ending up making things worse by starting to cry himself. After that they continued to try, but they both knew that they were walking a fine line between making it or breaking it.

In the end it was Tony who decided to break it all off. They were supposed to go out and have dinner like normal people when a bomb had gone off somewhere within the city. Between Tony immediately suiting up and Pepper attempting to look calm and not worried at all, he knew that one of them would have to bend.

And he didn’t want it to be Pepper, his secretary who helped him fit a spare arc reactor in his chest all those years ago despite her being afraid of the whole ordeal. His Pepper, who he destroyed all of his suits for only to build even more weeks later.

He knew that they loved each other, but he was going where she couldn’t, and if Pepper asked him to stay, he knew that he couldn’t. Someone was going to have to give.

They broke things off amicably, keeping up appearances for Stark Industries whenever needed. During work, they were still working on being co-workers and friends, and Tony was ashamed to admit that he caught himself trying to kiss her absentmindedly too many times. Outside of work, they talked, sure, but there was always Something they couldn’t talk about. Before they knew it, they saw each other outside of work less, and Tony guessed it was for the best.

He needed a vacation, he decided. It was the millionth time the thought crossed his mind since he got back from Titan, but it was never going to be more than wishful thinking at this rate. Between damage control, Vision, the Accords, expanding into space and the occasional superheroing, there would never be a time for him to just up and disappear.

He turned on the TV, and Wall-E was on. He remembered that he was watching the same movie almost two weeks ago, with Quill beside him. That was the night when Tony broke things off with Pepper, and he had been ready to jump back into alcohol until he saw Quill watching the damn movie. He wanted to tell Quill to fuck off and let him drink in peace, but instead he found himself rambling while Wall-E was fucking off to space. He thought he’d start drinking when Peter finally left, but he opted to sit through the credits of the movie before going to sleep himself.

And just like that he wasn’t thinking about what he  _had_ to do tomorrow, or painfully remembering yesterday. Instead, he was remembering when the Guardians were here making a mess of everything, and he found himself looking forward to their next visit.

_Of course we’ll come back to Earth_ , he remembered Quill saying, as if the alternative had never even crossed his mind.

Tony began walking to his workshop, humming the Wall-E song - he would have to look up the name of that song one day - in the empty Compound.

 

* * *

 

In the few months before Christmas, Tony got a lot done. He had finally gotten around finalizing the newest version of the Accords (something that was extremely controversial due to how much Tony had changed it, but overwhelming public support tipped the scales in their favor). After that, getting Cap and his crew pardoned was a piece of cake, and there was a whole press conference about it with Steve charming the masses with his All-American smile. Pepper was there and they talked over coffee afterwards, which Tony was very proud of.

Pretty recently, Tony had worked closely with T’Challa to introduce their hidden country to the world, sealing the deal with a few joint humanitarian projects between Stark Industries and Wakanda.

Now though, Tony was working on something much more important. It felt like ages since the last time he threw a party on a whim, and he was going to make this the best party in the whole universe. A little reward to himself for getting a whole year over with, and a chance to unwind.

Every inch of the old Avengers Compound (he was going to have to do something about the name) was covered in festive decorations, and a giant Christmas tree dominated the main living area. He had invited everyone he knew and then some, with a little present for everyone. For the ones he actually knew, he picked out the presents himself. Everyone else got something FRIDAY picked out, like the latest StarkPhone or a flatscreen TV.

The party itself wasn’t actually on the 25th, since that would’ve been a hassle for everyone involved, so he had it three days before that, which meant it was today. The sun was beginning to set and the guests were filtering in, and he was off to be the perfect host.

One of the first people to arrive were the Parkers, and Aunt May was kind enough to bring some meatloaf. After seeing Peter’s brief look of warning, Tony made sure to stow it away and burn it in the nearest incinerator. Stephen Strange was kind enough not to portal into his home (the last time he did that Tony panicked and blew a new hole into the side of the compound) and brought his magic friend, Wong. Rhodey arrived with Pepper and Happy, and he was proud of himself when the worst he felt was a slight pang in his chest when he saw Pepper.

After awhile people decided they’d just started giving him his gifts, and Tony was fine with just hanging onto them for the time being, until everyone decided to join in. Then, Tony just picked a random empty table and dumped all the gifts there. He made sure to give his gifts too, of course, he wasn’t an ass.

After that, Tony went to get a drink (non-alcoholic, he made sure), walking over to the balcony to get some air. Peter ran in front of him, his hands behind his back as he smiled at him nervously.

“Hey Mr. Stark, I-I got you a gift!” With that, he held his hands out and in it was a small gift-wrapped box slightly bigger than his hands. “I didn’t know what to get you since you’re...you but I remember you said once that you never-“

Peter caught himself, closing his lips and breaking out into a smile. “I mean hopefully you’ll figure it out when you open it.”

Tony took the box and gave it and experimental shake. He was watching the boy’s expression, his thoughts of adding the gift to the ever-growing gift pile thrown out the window.

He tore the wrapper away and threw it into a trash can by the door, and he looked at Peter when he saw what was inside. It was an an old GameBoy in mint condition, with a Pokèmon cartridge attached to it. Peter looked really proud of himself up until he saw Tony’s expression, then he rushed to say, “I-I remember when we were fighting that orange dragon looking robot, after we beat it I said it looked like Charizard and then you said you never played Pokémon before and-“

Tony was smiling now, and he placed a firm hand on Peter’s shoulder to hush him. “Peter, that was weeks ago, and I can’t believe you even remember that.”

“You said you couldn’t play it because you never had the time as a kid, and then right after that I-“

Tony wrapped him in a hug, patting him on the back a couple of times. God, he hoped he was doing this right. He never knew what to do around the kid. “Thank you, Peter.”

Peter hugged him back, and he was instantly reminded of when Peter hugged him when Tony was trying to open the door behind him. He pulled away, smiling at the memory that felt so long ago.

“Well thanks to you jumping me like that, now I have to give you your gift.” Tony said, digging around his coat pocket to fish out a thin card looking thing with a neat bow on it. “I know I ‘inducted’ you into the club when we were on that space ship, but I guess this should make things official enough.”

Peter took the card and looked at it, and then he looked at Tony. He repeated this a few times, his mouth getting wider and wider until he finally said, “Mr. Stark thank you so much I’m going to make you so proud and I’ll-“

Tony suppressed a yelp when Peter tackle-hugged him, the rest of his thanks lost. He pulled away and started to ramble more about how he was going to kick ass and make Tony proud, until his Aunt suddenly called him because she was handing out the meatloaf.

Damn, Tony knew he forgot to do something.

Tony continued on to the balcony, eyes focused on the starry night sky. He remembered the panic attacks whenever he would even remember The New York Incident, but now the only memories he had of the big wide world out there was...more neutral. He remembered Quill telling stories about how they’d cruise around the galaxies looking for problems to cause and solve later, discovering ‘all sorts of shit you’ll never see here on Terra’.

“Tony.” A voice said from behind him.

He froze, recognizing the voice immediately. Steve Rogers walked up to his side, looking out at he stars as well.

“Hey there Cap. When I sent out the invites, I never really expected you to come since-“

“I wanted to drop by, at least.” Steve said. Up close, Tony was immediately reminded of Quill’s description of him, a ‘blond super lumberjack’. “Everyone else came too, except for Wanda and Vision.”

“Oh yeah? How’s Vision going?” Tony asked.

“He’s been awake for awhile now. Getting used to being alive again and working through some gaps in his memory. Wanda’s helping him through every step of the way.”

“Bet he’s disappointed he can’t shoot laser beams anymore, or walk through walls.” Tony said, remembering how creepy it had been to have what felt like a robot ghost wandering the Compound.

Steve laughed at that. “He’s actually walked into a lot of walls when he first woke up. Wanda tries to help him, whenever she’s done laughing.”

“Glad to hear it.”

After that, silence fell and Tony could feel the tension building. Whatever Steve had come here to say, he was about to say it.

Steve sighed, before turning to look Tony in the eye. “Tony. I know you’ve been trying to fix the Accords-“

Tony groaned, trying to ignore the immediate urge to start yelling at Steve. “If you’re telling me that I’ve been hauling ass over revising this stupid thing for nothing, I swear to God I’m going to-“

“We were ready to live with our choices! I still stand by what we chose - what we had to do.”

“God, Steve, after the whole Thanos bullshit I thought you’d see the point-“

“We were there when it counted! We fought for Wakanda and to protect Vision from Thanos!” Their voices were rising now, and Tony flicked a hand in the door’s direction to close it. He wasn’t ready to display their argument for the whole party just yet.

“You divided us! If we were still a team we could’ve solved everything together and done it so much better-“

“I divided us?” Steve said. “All I wanted was to make sure that our power was still our own, so that we could use it freely to save the people!”

“Don’t talk to me about power.” Tony said through his teeth. He was this close to kicking Steve out, but he needed to believe that Steve could be convinced. He had to be. “When I held the Infinity Gauntlet, the only reason I destroyed it immediately was because I saw that  _I was right_. That much power uncontained and allowed to be thrown around on a whim was never going to be good for anybody, as tempting as it was to just go down to Earth and finish the whole set myself.”

Steve was quiet now, and Tony’s voice was raw, brimming with emotions he thought he’d suppressed long ago. “I really wanted to just...snap my fingers and fix everything, but then I saw Thanos, and I thought that must’ve been how he felt. He thought he was fixing everything, and maybe he was, in a twisted way. But...I don’t know how, but I felt it. Along with nearly infinite power I felt the pain of everybody he left in his conquest. On a smaller scale, that was us. We were helping everything in the only way we knew we could, and because of that, people suffered. Even if we never meant it.”

Tony paused, trying to steady his breathing. Steve had gone quiet beside him. “At least read the damn thing. I’ve revised too much for you to not even look at it. Along with all your pardons, I loosened their hold on us, but not so much that we can just flat out ignore them and the damage we leave behind. So read it. Please.”

He was looking away when he said the last part, feeling too emotionally tired to deal with looking at Steve.

“Okay.” was all that Steve said, which was more than he originally hoped for. After that, he was alone again.

* * *

Hours later and the last of the guests had finally cleared away. Rhodey offered to stay and help clean up, but Tony waved him away, telling them the bots could handle it. Rhodey told him the only reason Happy wasn’t here right now to offer his help too was because him and a few of the other guests had mysteriously gotten indigestion after eating a whole serving of meatloaf. They would’ve stopped after the first bite, but apparently they were too polite to throw the meatlof out the window when Aunt May was right there.

He sank into the couch, ignoring the whirring of his bots attempting to clean up the mess around him. He was glad for the non-human companionship, since he could let his guard down around his bots and not worry about being mothered.

He was weighing the pros and cons of sleeping on the couch when FRIDAY’s voice filled the otherwise quiet room.

“Boss, I’m afraid you’re gonna want to see this.”

And just like that, he was back on his feet. “What exactly is ‘this’?”

Tony walked to the balcony again, his suit flowing from its housing on his chest and all around his body until his latest armor practically materialized around him.

“What appears to be a space ship heading straight for this location, Boss.”

FRIDAY pinged the location on his interface, and he looked up into the sky. He could see a faint burning spec growing larger by the second. He zoomed in on it, slightly relieved that the spacecraft was either housing an entire planet’s worth of Smurfs, or just a few normal sized enemies.

He shot up into the air, the armor around his legs shifting to form a single giant thruster, which gave him the boost he needed to reach the spaceship before anyone down on Earth would have to worry about it.

He was a few meters below it now, hovering directly in its path. He pointed both of his repulsors into the spaceship’s hull, his armor molding giant cannons inspired by Rocket’s favorite gun when he heard a familiar voice in his comms.

“Tony- Jesus fucking Christ put that thing away!”

It took him a second to realize that the ship had stopped and that Quill was talking to him. He disassembled the cannons and found himself relaxing by a great deal. He hadn’t even realized he was that tense until he heard Quill. “Honestly if I knew the reception was gonna be this bad I never would’ve come back.”

“Well, Star-Lord, maybe next time you wanna give a guy a heads up.” He was descending back down to the ground, the spaceship landing ahead of him.

“You didn’t tell Tony?” He heard Rocket say, and he heard a light smack and Peter yelping in pain.

“I did!” Tony had retracted the armor now, just as Peter and the rest of the Guardians stepped out of their craft. Peter was rubbing the back of his head, ignoring Rocket who was glaring at him. “I thought I was pretty clear when I told you we were coming back.”

That was directed at Tony, who shook his head and tried to not lose his cool. “That was months ago. You literally could’ve at least called or something. Hey, by the way.”

“I thought we could surprise you.” Quill said. “Just in time for Christmas too! It is almost Christmas, right?”

“Yeah, but you just missed my pre-Christmas party.”

“Well, we can have another one on Christmas!” Quill said, proud of the solution. “By the way it is cool if we crash here for awhile, right?”

“We did not crash.” Drax said from behind Quill. “We landed perfectly well.”

“Yeah sure.” Tony said, watching Mantis whisper an explanation of the metaphor to Drax. “I still have your rooms open anyway.”

“I am Groot.”

“Woah, you’re actually not teen-sized anymore.” Tony said, noticing the tree stand almost as tall as Quill.

“I am Groot.”

“Well I am getting tired, so I’ll show you guys in then I’ll collapse on my bed and go to sleep.”

* * *

In a twist that surprised nobody, Tony went straight to the workshop after helping the Guardians settle in again. He was working on a third thing now, with the previous two other things sitting uselessly on the floor. One of them was supposed to be a complex door stopper but all it did was sit there uselessly, and the other one was supposed to be...something. He couldn’t remember.

“Hey, I went looking for you because I found meatloaf in the fireplace and you weren’t in your room so I-“ he heard Quill say, and he almost jumped at the sudden voice. “Oh my god are you okay?”

Quill was beside him now, his concern over Tony sidetracked by whatever the hell was in Tony’s hands. What was he building again?

“I’m uh. Just a little tired.” Tony said, putting Thing #3 down because apparently all it was was a mess of pieces that fit together but did nothing. “It’s been a long day.”

“It’s 3am.”

“Like I said.”

There was silence for awhile, long enough for Tony to pick Thing #3 back up and attempt to dismantle it, when Quill said, “I lied, about the meatloaf.”

Tony paused, looking away from Thing #3 and at Quill, who had none of the casual charm and enthusiasm on his face right now. “I mean there actually was meatloaf in the fireplace for some reason, but that wasn’t the reason I came down here to look for you. I just...it was too quiet back in my room and nobody else was up.”

Quill looked away, as if he saying that out loud was embarrassing. Tony wasn’t sure what to do after that, so he went back to disassembling Thing #3.

“I...I come down here sometimes. When it gets too quiet.” Tony finally said. “I tell myself I’ll probably invent something new but usually i just end up making...”

“Baubles?” Quill supplied helpfully, looking at the weird monstrosity that was Thing #3.

“Nah, that’s not it. Anyway, the distraction. It helps.”

“I know.” Quill said. “It’s kind of why I went looking for you. No offense, but you’re kind of a chatterbox. I mean that in the best way.”

“Yeah?” Tony said, pulling out the wrong piece and suddenly Thing #3 was spasming in his hand, until he threw it onto the floor and started stomping it until it went limp. “Also while we’re making ourselves emotionally vulnerable, is there any specific reason you came back?”

“Aside from missing the company?” Quill said, and Tony rolled his eyes.

“That’s a given, Star-Lord.”

“We, uh. Went back to Vormir a week ago.” Quill said, the smile fading from his expression. “We found her body. Gave her the send-off she deserved. After that we all just...needed a little time-out, y’know?”

“Yeah.” Tony said, looking at Quill. “I know.”

There was another brief silence, ruined only by Quill drumming his fingers along a nearby table.

“What about you?” Quill said. “Any reason you’re making mechanical freaks of nature tonight?”

“I, uh. Had a fight with Cap.”

“The lumberjack?”

“Yeah. Hopefully he ends up listening to me though. Don’t know if I can handle another Thanos situation with a broken team.”

“Well, what about two broken teams? That’s practically a whole team, right?” Quill said, beaming down at him.

“What?”

“I mean my team, dummy. If some galaxy-threatening villain comes knocking, we can work together like we did back with Thanos.”

Tony looked down, considering the offer. “I’d like that.”

“Yeah?” Quill said, smiling.

“Yeah.” Tony said, returning the smile. “I think I’ve had enough moping for one night. Wanna watch Wall-E?”

Tony closed up the workshop while Quill went upstairs to set up the movie. The only worry on Tony’s mind before he left was that Thing #3 had disappeared without a trace, but he decided he’d worry about it another day before going up to join Quill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really have a schedule for updating this, but it'll never be longer than 5 days before I post a new chapter so there's that at least


	3. Moving Forward

Maybe staying up all night watching Disney movies wasn’t such a great idea, Quill thought as the first thing he felt when he woke up was a giant head ache. There was a voice talking to him, but he could barely hear it, let alone understand it. He felt a warm weight on his side and opened his eyes, letting his vision adjust to the sudden light.

He looked down at his side and saw Tony sleeping soundly on him, his head resting on Quill’s shoulders. After a second he heard the voice again, and he realized it was Tony. He was murmuring something in his sleep, a bunch of random words he couldn’t understand. Quill moved his hand to poke at Tony to wake him up, when suddenly there was a flash of red and a crushing grip on his wrist and he was falling-

He crashed onto the floor and the first thing his barely recovering mind sees is Tony’s repulsors pointed straight at his face, and Quill’s was only surprised for a moment before he understood, and he softened his voice before saying, “Tony, it’s me. Peter Quill, remember?”

There was a moment of silence and the gauntlet in front of him shrank away, forming an expensive looking watch on Tony’s wrist. Tony pulled away from Quill, his eyes wide and his breathing shallow. “Quill-“ he said, getting off of Quill and shakily standing up. “I’m sorry I-“

He heard footsteps and distant yelling, and Quill sat up just in time to see Drax and Mantis storm into the room. Drax had his blades out and Mantis looked ready to attack, but they saw Tony and Quill and relaxed by a fraction. “What happened?” Mantis asked, when neither of them offered an explanation.

Tony opened his mouth to say something but Quill cut in, “We fell asleep on the couch. I accidentally pushed Tony off when I woke up and here we are.” He smiled sheepishly after saying that, getting back on his feet before shooting Tony a smile. Tony looked less rattled now, and was forcing a smile to help sell the lie.

Drax was convinced immediately, heading over to the kitchen while grumbling something about the complexity of human sleeping habits. Mantis gave them a lingering look before joining Drax.

Tony turned to him and Quill could see the tension and the apology he was trying to say.

“So, what’s for breakfast? Last time we were here we never got the chance to eat sushi, so maybe we could try one of those?” Quill said, his expression hopeful.

Tony relaxed, and Quill mentally patted himself on the back for that one. “Maybe. Sushi for breakfast feels like it should be illegal though.”

After that they joined Drax and Mantis at the table, and little by little he could see Tony letting his guard down and allowing himself to smile and laugh around them. By the time Rocket and Groot had woken up, Quill was telling everyone about how he escaped prison on some distant planet with nothing but a pillow and a chair. Tony was beside himself with laughter, and the stark contrast between the way Tony was awhile ago and the way he was acting now was in the back of his mind. If Tony didn’t want to talk about his nightmares, Quill could respect that. After all, he had some of his own that he never ever talked about. But at least with this, Quill could give Tony something to laugh and smile about.

* * *

Tony left later that day, saying he had a few last minute problems to take care of. When Quill asked him what it was about, Tony just gave him a funny look before leaving.

After that, Rocket was taking apart most of the electronics around the compound, saying that most of these were obsolute and ‘desperately lacking in the explosives department’. Quill found out the hard way when he tried to microwave some popcorn and ended up having to try to put out the resulting fire before FRIDAY hosed down the whole kitchen. 

After that, Quill decided he’d take a shower since he was sure some of his hair was still singed, and he screamed - in a totally manly way, he would say later whenever it was brought up - when he saw Drax standing behind the shower curtain. He had to physically remove Drax from the bathroom, who was explaining that he was practicing his stealth abilities.

After that he decided he’d had enough before he ran into an explosive doormat or Drax hiding in the closet, so he decided to go out and check on Groot. He was out by a tree, extending his hands out into branches for something. He was looking around and it took awhile for Peter to realize he was trying to get the birds to land on him. Quill stayed with him for awhile, telling him to stand still, and he tried to teach him how to whistle. Despite Groot’s inability to whistle, he eventually did get a bird to land on him, which flew away as soon as he tried to touch it. He went back inside after that, and he heard Rocket yell something about the doormat landmine when the door opened.

Once he was sure that nothing noteworthy blew up, he walked over to the garden he usually goes to be alone in. When he asked Tony about the garden the first time he was here, Tony seemed surprised that there was a garden at all, but let him stay there whenever he wanted. He sat on the bench right in the middle of it all and looked around. He could see a lot of flowers he could recognize from his childhood, and a lot more he couldn’t put a name to now. He was whistling the tune he was trying to teach Groot when Mantis came in, waving hello at him before sitting down beside him.

“Peter, is Mr. Stark doing alright?” she asked, and he stopped humming to think about the answer.

“Are any of us, really?” he said, not too fond of how sour the conversation started out. 

“Out of all of us, you’re the closest one to him. Maybe convince him to talk or seek me out if he ever needs it.” Mantis said, her voice level as she watched Quill carefully. 

“I know.” he said, because he really did. “I’m trying.”

“I know.” Mantis said, seemingly content with his response. 

* * *

The sun was setting when Quill found out about Dance Dance Revolution, and he had somehow gotten the rest of the Guardians into it. Rocket was extremely against it at first, but got really competitive with Quill when he consistently got the best score out of all of them. It probably didn’t help that Drax loudly pointed out all of Rocket’s mistakes, before demonstrating on what he should have done instead. Mantis was off doing her own thing, enjoying herself despite the fact that she was missing most of the moves and started inventing her own. When Groot eventually joined them, Quill was extremely annoyed to find out that Groot beat all of his high scores effortlessly. The next twenty minutes was nothing but Quill and Groot having a dance-off, with everyone else laughing at how Quill still couldn’t come close to the tree’s score.

It was the tenth rematch when Quill finally threw in the towel.

“I am Groot.” Groot said smugly.

Before Quill could respond in kind, he heard Drax laugh loudly before exclaiming, “Look! A fight awaits us!”

The rest of the Guardians followed where he was pointing at, and he could see what looked like a giant armored earthworm attacking the city.

“About time.” Rocket grumbled, following the other Guardians to the ship. “Been getting boring here.”

For once, Quill didn’t disagree.

* * *

As soon as they got there, they left Rocket to pilot the ship and provide air support while the rest of them got onto the ground.

Up close, Quill could immediately recognize what they were up against - or at least, what it used to be. He could see that it used to be a Chitauri Leviathan, but from what Tony told them there shouldn’t have been any left on Earth. He flew up and shot at the beast to get its attention, and he noticed a lot of gaping holes in its body, most of which were patched up by machinery. A mad experiment gone wrong, then.

The Leviathan started following him, snaking through the buildings and he was instantly reminded of the old game Snake. 

He turned a corner and the beast followed him, and he saw Mantis jump from a nearby building and onto the Leviathan. She pressed her hands into its armor and the lights on her antennae flared, and the beast began to slow. Quill heard the beast crash into a building, and his heart stopped when it began to fall towards Mantis and the Leviathan. 

“Uh, Rocket?” he said into his earpiece, noticing the sudden absence of the ship.

When Rocket didn’t reply, Quill flew towards them even though he knew he wouldn’t make it, but he saw a blur of red descend onto Mantis and leave with her, and he quickly stopped in his tracks just as the building collapsed onto the beast. 

He followed the red blur onto a nearby untouched street and saw Mantis with Spiderman beside her.

“Oh hey, I remember you. Peter too, right?” Quill said, and he could see the boy’s whole body brighten up as he tried to stand a little taller. 

“Yeah!” He said, elated at Quill remembering him. “I mean, yeah. I am.” 

Quill’s smile widened at Peter trying to play it cool, and he decided he liked him well enough. “Thanks for the save by the way, don’t know what would’ve happened without you.”

“All in a day’s work, since I’m a hero and- oh my god is that your ship?” Peter ran over to the approaching ship, just in time to watch Rocket land it.

The door opened and Rocket walked out dejectedly, and Quill was about to ask him where he was when a flood of kindergarten age children flooded out of the space ship, complete with a teacher trying to shepherd them all together. One of them immediately jumped Peter, who reflexively dodged, and the child fell flat on his face instead. Peter knelt down and started to try to calm the kid before he could start crying.

One kid, a little girl who couldn’t be older than four, was hiding behind Rocket which was useless since she was still slightly taller than him. 

“You know, I was about to ask where you were, but I guess I’m glad you found your true calling.” Quill said, doing his best to hold back his laughter. Rocket growled, but otherwise kept his mouth shut.

“The bus was about to fall off the bridge so I had to, Quill.” Rocket said through his teeth. 

“Where’s Drax and Groot?”

“Hell if I know.” Rocket grumbled. He walked over to Quill, and his ears drooped when he heard the girl following him closely. 

He heard a battlecry and turned to see Drax run towards the fallen Leviathan, before he jumped at it and started to stab it with his blades. Groot was following closely behind him, giving them a look that meant he didn’t know either.

“Groot, please get Drax away from that before he hurts himself.” he said loudly, and Groot nodded before attempting to get Drax down.

Suddenly there was a bright flash, and he turned around and saw a person pointing a camera at him, and suddenly a bunch of news reporters were on the scene. One of them was pointing a camera at Rocket, who was currently trying to gently pry the child off of him. Mantis was eagerly talking with another reporter, overjoyed at the sudden attention she was getting. 

Suddenly there was a microphone in his face and he heard, “Excuse me, are you with these aliens?”

“Are you an alien?”

“Are you here to invade Earth or defend it?”

“Who are you?”

 

“Well uh...” Quill began, pausing before he said, “Yes, technically yes, defend it, and as for who we are, well we’re-“

He heard the sound of metal hitting the ground beside him and he turned to see Tony shed his helmet but keep the rest of his armor intact. “They’re the Guardians of the Galaxy, and they’re here with me until further notice.”

After that there was a new chorus of questions, and Tony was somehow talking to all of them and keeping them away from the rest of the Guardians. Quill tried to chime in every now and again, but Tony steered them away from asking anymore questions. Eventually the reporters were satisfied and they left, and Tony turned to him with a tired look on his face. “I leave you alone for one day and somehow you’ve made it to every major news outlet in the world.”

“In our defense, we did take care of the problem!” Quill said, gesturing to the fallen building and the twice-dead Leviathan behind him. The kids had finally left with their teacher, hopefully back to school or wherever they were going. That left literally almost nothing left to clean up, honestly.

Tony sighed, the rest of his armor receding back into the thing on his chest. “Well. On the bright side, at least I don’t have to worry about easing you into the public eye now.”

“And, whatever that building used to be can be something new now!” Quill added helpfully.

“That was something new. Literally just opened yesterday.” Tony said, deadpan.

“Oh. Newer then?” Quill said.

Tony looked like he was about to get pissed again, but he smiled and just shook his head. “And now that you’re all out here, we might as well go get that sushi.”

“Really?” Peter said, running up to them. 

“Sweet Christ, kid, when did you get here?” Tony said. He shook his head and took out his phone. “You know what, whatever, just come along, the heroes eating with the alien heroes should be good for publicity anyway.”

Tony started walking, and both Peters and the rest of the Guardians followed suit.

* * *

“So this is...raw fish?” Rocket asked, holding up a slice of salmon. He tossed it into his mouth and chewed it pensively. “Eh. I’ve had worse.”

They were in some fancy sushi place now, and it was mostly empty due to the nearby alien attack.

Mantis had seen Rocket eat, and started throwing food into her mouth with almost perfect accuracy. There were bits of fish and sauce all over her face, but she either didn’t care or didn’t know. Drax tried to use the chopsticks after Peter tried to teach him how, but found it too difficult and just stabbed most of the sushi with the chopstick. Groot was standing by the aquarium, watching the fish swim around while poking at the glass.

“I swear, I’ve ended up taking in a bunch of superpowered children.” Tony said, watching Peter poke the tuna sashimi for the sixth time. “I thought you wanted to eat sushi, what’s happening?” 

Peter quickly shovelled the offending sashimi into his mouth, trying to hide the gagging that came after.

Quill laughed, nudging Tony with his arm. “C’mon, don’t act so surprised. You’re practically mothering our small spiderboy.”

“The mom, huh? What does that make you then?” Tony said, rolling his eyes. Peter finally managed to swallow the sashimi and Tony gave him what might have been an approving look.

“Obviously the cool and fun dad.” He replied immediately. “I’ll be taking our superpowered kids to dinosaur parks and space while you take them to school and make them eat their vegetables.”

“Well in that case I’m divorcing you.” Tony said simply.

“Well in that case I’ll leave five houses and like, a gazillion dollars richer.” Quill shot back. “Ooh if we divorce can I fight for one of your Iron Man suits?”

“I knew you were a gold digger right from the start.” Tony said, shaking his head.

Up until now Peter was watching the back and forth between them with a fascinated expression, until Tony saw him and glared him back into eating his food.

Quill and Tony exchanged a look, and they both started laughing, and just like that, their pasts were another day farther behind them.


	4. What Comes Tomorrow

It had taken a week for Tony to realize that he was doing alright, all things considered. It started when he came home from proposing the idea of establishing an intergalactic presence and the only thing he was stressed about was beating Quill's new high score in Dance Dance Revolution (Groot's high score didn't count, Quill told him, since Groot was definitely cheating). It occurred to him again the day after, when he left the workshop instead of staying overnight in it so he could walk around the old gardens with Mantis to tell her all about the different kinds of trees and animals, though most of them he only knew because he Googled it. The day after that Rocket showed him how to build what he called a 'simple' space gun, but it easily surpassed most of the guns on Earth. Tony's thoughts drifted to what that would mean if another Thanos would arrive, but he set his mind on building something better than it and was proud when Rocket said it was better than anything he'd ever seen. Drax took him down to the training area, insisting that he needed a better sparring partner. Tony lost most of the time, but Drax made sure to show him every mistake and how to correct it, and soon enough Tony came kind of close to winning. He was smiling more now, and less of the fake smiles for the public's sake, and more genuine ones. All in all, Tony was doing alright.

He was in the middle of watching Quill play Skyrim when he realized this, and Quill looked at him with a confused expression. "Tony, you doin' okay?"

"Yeah." Tony replied automatically, as he always did whenever anyone asked him that. But then he saw Quill frowning and he knew he could see right through it, but Tony smiled and said, "Yeah. I really am."

"Great, because there's supposed to be a dragon up ahead and I'm wondering if you can give me like a laser gun or something?" Quill said, turning back to the screen. "That's a thing, right?"

"No, I'm pretty sure the closest you'll get is a bow." Tony replied.

"Yeah but can't you edit it in for me or something?" Quill said, eyes brightening up at the idea. "Like, imagine fighting a medieval dragon with a laser gun while everyone else is using a bow! It'll be awesome!"

"You're a child." Tony said, rolling his eyes at Quill.

"And you're no fun." Quill said, his character running at the dragon with his sword and shield. Immediately, the game locked him in a kill animation as the dragon ate his character before flying away, and Quill groaned before putting the controller away. 

There was Quill too, Tony thought as the man went back to playing the game. Quill had been doing...something lately. He could see it ever since Quill told him he would be there for Tony if he needed it, and Tony believes it. He believed in him a little bit more whenever Quill would march down the workshop whenever he was in there for too long. Quill wouldn't try to make him leave, which he was grateful for. Most of the time, Quill would come down with something he could keep himself busy with while Tony continued to work, and they'd talk sometimes and he didn't mind Quill occasionally bursting into song. Eventually he would leave the workshop a little earlier than scheduled because Quill wanted to do something he hadn't done before, and Tony would be more than happy to help him with whatever it was. One night they marathoned the whole Harry Potter series and another night he let Quill try on one of his older suits and they flew around until they wanted to go home and sleep. 

Quill died to the same dragon again, and Tony sighed and took out his phone. He accessed the game system and fiddled with it a little, and when Quill was facing off against the dragon again, his character was holding a laser gun.

"Knew you'd come through for me, Tony!" Quill said, whooping as one shot from the gun took the dragon down. Tony returned Quill's smile before messing around with the game some more, and then suddenly Quill was facing off against a whole army of dragons. Quill stood up and nearly pushed the table over in doing so, before he started to gun down the dragon army Tony created.

All things considered, Tony was doing pretty good.

"Boss, don't forget your press conference in three hours." FRIDAY said, snapping him out of his thoughts.

And with that, Tony left behind his thoughts for another time and went back to work.

First order of business was Drax, who he had to find someone to make a custom suit for him. Tony checked on him in his room, to see that Drax had the tuxedo in tatters at the bed. "Uh. Drax?"

"It was not comfortable." Drax said simply, glaring at the offending fabric. 

"That was literally by the best tailor in this country, how was it not comfy?" Tony said.

"It is complicated." Drax said, folding his arms over his chest before huffing.

"Hey, Tony, do we really have to wear these because I feel like-" he heard Rocket say as he entered the room, with a tiny tux in his hands. He stopped when he saw Drax with his arms over his chest and the tuxedo on the bed, before he started to laugh loudly. Rocket yelped when a dagger flew past his ear and he scurried out of the room, laughing about Drax's sensitive nipples the whole time. Tony tried to steel his expression, since he wasn't too fond of the idea of a knife flying at him. 

"So, maybe no tux then?" Tony said, watching Drax glare at him, as if daring him to laugh. "Yeah, good call actually, the more alien the better and all that. Anyway I better go check on Mantis."

He tried not to say that last part too quickly before leaving the room, and he saw Rocket snickering by the doorway. Rocket offered him a fistbump and Tony flicked him on the forehead before allowing himself to grin a bit. "I swear Rocket, dying because I laughed at Drax's sensitive nipples isn't high on my priorities."

Rocket laughed again, winking before he left. Another knife flew out of the open doorway and Rocket narrowly ducked away from it, his laughter increasing.

Tony would've been more alarmed a few weeks ago if Drax started throwing knives at them, but Quill told him once that Drax aims just right for it to miss. He was a little doubtful at first, but Rocket was very prone to poking fun at Drax, and eventually he got used to knives flying around the house.

He knocked before entering Mantis' room, opening the door to see her staring at the beautiful green sleeveless dress that was on her wall. She hopped over to him and smiled. "Thank you for the dress, Tony. It is very beautiful."

"Glad to hear it. You can keep it after all this, by the way. Just in case that wasn't clear." Tony said.

"After all what?" Mantis said, tilting her head.

"The press conference, and Earth in general, I mean."

"You mean once we leave?"

"Yeah." Tony said, feeling his heart sink a little at acknowledging it out loud. They wouldn't stay forever, and he knew that the moment he let them crash in his house after Titan. 

"Oh, Tony." Mantis said, smiling sadly. "I wish we could stay but-"

"No no, don't worry 'bout it." Tony said dismissively. "All that matters is that we enjoy while you guys are here, right?"

Mantis regarded him with a look before smiling. "Of course."

"Anyway, we'll be leaving in two hours, so if you have any problems just ask FRIDAY."

"Thank you, Tony." Mantis said, smiling wider. 

"Anytime." he said, leaving her room.

And that left...Quill. Technically, Groot and Quill, but all Groot needs is to show up since putting clothes on a tree might just be a little too weird. So he went back to the living room where Quill was still playing. From the looks of it, he was terrorizing all of Whiterun with his new laser gun, mowing down all the guards that tried to apprehend him.

"You all set for the conference later?" Tony asked, sitting down by him. He still had more to set up, but he could do most of that from his phone, thankfully.

"Uh-huh." Quill said, eyes glued to the screen. "Got a whole speech prepared and everything."

"Really now?" Tony said, a little surprised. "Now this I've got to hear."

"Well you'll hear it when we get there." Quill replied.

"Not nervous at all?" Tony asked.

"Nope." Quill said. "All we have to do is look good and talk good, and I've already got half of that covered."

Tony rolled his eyes and went back to work, making all the necessary calls and arrangements for the press conference in the afternoon.

* * *

 "Relax Pete, it's not like this is the first time you've made a public appearance on a planet before." Rocket said, watching the man pace around the backstage. They were at their first press conference now, with Tony introducing them to the world to hopefully familiarize the Earth with the idea of friendly aliens. Which was going to be hard, especially considering all the aliens so far have been...less than friendly.

"I'm fine." Peter said tersely, before pacing away from them again. Rocket gave Tony an exasperated look before going over to stop Groot from wandering off. Tony walked up to him and placed a firm hand on his shoulder, forcing him to stand still.

"Something wrong, Star-Lord?" Tony asked, using the nickname to hopefully get a reaction out of him.

"It's-" Quill said, obviously about to deny anything before he caught himself. "I'm just nervous, is all."

"Rocket says this isn't your first time in front of a crowd." Tony said, watching Quill's expression.

"I just..." Quill said, trailing off. Under the horrible attempt at looking casual, Tony could see vulnerability and shame. "It's different this time. On all those other planets, I could handle it if they hated me, because at least then I could say its because I wasn't their species, y'know?"

But with this..." Quill said, laughing nervously. "It kinda feels like I'm about to be introduced to my girlfriend's parents or something. And if they reject me now, and why wouldn't they, I'm practically an intergalactic criminal-"

"Listen to yourself right now." Tony said, squeezing his shoulder. "They'll love you, I'm sure of it. Though naturally there will always be people who don't, but that's fine. They aren't any more special just because they're human too."

"Besides." Tony added, seeing that Quill nodded at his words but still didn't smile. "That picture of you throwing sushi at Mantis is still trending on the Internet, and it's been a whole week."

Quill smiled, but it didn't reach his ears, so Tony added, "Listen, you said it yourself, this'll be easy. I'll be doing most of the talking anyway, so all you have to do is stand and look pretty. Plus once you're back in space all they'll remember is that you're doing hero things, but in space."

"You're right." Quill said, taking a deep breath. "By the way Tony, I've been meaning to talk to you about that."

"About what?" 

"When we leave." Quill said, somehow looking even more nervous than before.

"Yeah, yeah. I talked about it with Mantis" Tony said, even though that was kind of exaggerating. 

"Oh." Quill said, blinking. He was smiling now. "That makes me feel a lot better. I can't wait to-"

"Mr. Stark, you're up." a voice said into his earpiece, and he straightened out his suit before walking out to the stage.

It was the usual, really. Giant crowd, too many cameras, lots of people cheering for him and jeering at him, et cetera. His mind drifted back to when he announced that he was Iron Man, and he could remember the nervousness at declaring himself as what was technically a superhero, and he could understand the way Quill felt about the whole thing.

By the time he introduced the Guardians of the Galaxy, the main event, the crowd went wild and ooh'd and aah'd at the aliens and Quill, bombarding them with flashes and questions.

"Is that a raccoon?" he heard someone gasp, as if the pictures and videos all over the internet of Rocket wasn't proof enough.

"Hey, zip it!" Rocket said, snarling in their general direction. 

Before Tony could say anything, Drax stood a little taller before standing beside Rocket. "He is not a raccoon!" Drax said, singling out whoever said that. "Before anything, it must be made clear that everyone in our team is family."

Rocket looked up at Drax with his mouth hanging open, and the crowd was murmuring quietly about something. Tony smiled, feeling his chest warm at the sight. Drax looked at him and nodded, as if to tell him that it was ok to carry on.

"Okay, now any other questions?" Tony said, and the crowd burst into its noise once again.

"Which one of you is the leader of the group?" a reporter asked.

Quill was about to speak up but Rocket spoke first. "Star-Lord is."

And again, Tony had to keep his mouth shut because he couldn't believe it. He could remember them arguing over their 'leadership' just a few days ago, and from Quill's face he could tell that he was just as surprised too. Quill smoothed over his expression as more questions were directed to him.

"Aren't you human?" another reporter asked.

"Yeah. I'm from Missouri, actually." Quill said. 

"How is it that you ended up as a Guardian of the Galaxy?"

"Well, I was abducted when I was young-" Quill said.

The crowd gasped and listened more intently, and suddenly Quill stopped talking. Tony looked at Quill and he looked back.

"Yeah?" Tony said, and Quill nodded and focused on him, as if he were having a conversation with Tony instead of a whole crowd. Besides, Tony hadn't heard this story in full detail before anyways.

After that Quill went on about how the Ravagers raised him and made him into the man he is today, and then he started talking about how the Guardians came together and took the Power Stone back from Ronan. The rest of the Guardians chipped in whenever Quill would trail off, and then suddenly it felt like they were back home in the compound telling stories instead of doing a press conference.

"How long will you be staying on Earth?" a reporter asked, snapping him out of his daze with the sudden weight he felt on his chest. He hadn't asked them, mostly because he didn't want to hear the answer. Now that it was out in the open though, he wished he didn't have to hear it but at the same time he desperately wanted to hear them say they'd stay maybe a week longer.

"Just until tomorrow, actually." Quill said, and Tony felt his heart sink straight through the floor. Meanwhile Quill was grinning and talking to the crowd, "Tony's made a lot of upgrades and repairs to our ship, and we'll be back in space by tomorrow."

Tony smoothed any creases in his expression, trying to keep up the happy casual facade that became his default 'public' face. He knew they would be leaving, but tomorrow? The first time they left it hadn't stung as much, since he was just getting to know them, but now that they'd stayed even longer he felt like he was a part of them. Which was stupid, he thought, and just like that, he felt the overbearing negativity begin to filter into his thoughts. He adamantly swept it back into its very distant corner, telling himself he would have a lot of time to be not okay once they were gone.

"When will you be coming back?" the reporter asked.

"Well, it depends on Tony I guess." Quill said, looking at him. Tony found himself looking back, despite everything. "We haven't actually talked about the details yet, but we can't exactly keep him forever. Maybe a week, tops?"

For the third time that day Tony felt his jaw drop and the crowd gasp, buzzing with even more questions that even Tony was thinking.

"You mean Tony Stark is coming with you?" a reporter asked.

"Yeah!" Quill said, smiling at Tony, who managed to smile back. Quill noticed the lapse in his expression, however. "He agreed just this morning."

The microphones were pointed at him, and he cleared his throat. He sifted through his memories of the morning for anything about agreeing to go to fucking  _space_ but came up with nothing. Then he remembered Quill wanting to talk to him about something right before he went on stage. Something about when they left and he wanted to ask Tony something important but Tony said Mantis already told him and he's mentally facepalming himself because this is why he shouldn't be cutting off people and assuming he knows what they're talking about-

Quill must have noticed his inner turmoil despite Tony's otherwise calm expression (though he has gone quiet for three seconds now) and Quill said, "Actually, I think there might be a-"

"Yes." Tony said loudly, getting everyone's attention. "I'll be going to space for a few days with the Guardians of the Galaxy. It's almost like a business trip really. I'll be out in space making connections for Earth, sightseeing, and I'll bring back a souvenir or two."

He spared a glance in Quill's direction, who was back to his idiotic grinning self, and he found himself grinning back. Well, he did want a vacation, after all.

"What will this mean for the Avengers?" a reporter asked, and Tony turned to whoever asked it. 

"Well, the Avengers are still on, of course. As you all know we are finding members to add, so really, I'm not leaving the Earth undefended."

A lot of murmurs from that answer.

"Does this mean you're a Guardian of the Galaxy now?" Another reporter asked.

Tony was about to say no when he heard Rocket speak up. "What kind of a question is that? He's been a part of us for awhile now."

"Yeah!" Quill said enthusiastically, and Tony felt like his head was overloading with all this new information he hadn't even considered before. "He's practically family at this point."

Tony can't cry in public because that's never going to go well unless he's crying over the death of puppies or something, so he doesn't.

* * *

 "And that's all the time we have for today, thank you." Tony said after what felt like an impossible amount of time, and he's inside his car now with the rest of the Guardians following him in.

"Tony I'm so sorry," Quill said as soon as he closed the door. "I swear I thought you meant Mantis told you about the plan and-"

"Does this mean you're my leader now?" Tony asked. "Because I gotta tell you, that does not sound appealing."

"You idiot, I can't believe you didn't even think that you were a part of us." Rocket said. "I thought the explosive doormats would've been a big enough sign."

"The explosive what now?" Tony said.

"What Rocket means to say, is that we thought it was clear that you were a part of our family a long time ago." Drax said, smiling and looking at the others. "That is what he meant by his metaphor, yes?"

"No, I don't think Rocket was being metaphorical about the explosive doormats." Mantis said, shaking her head.

"Oh. Well I still mean what I said." Drax said.

"What? Wait where the hell are the explosive doormats because I can't keep those lying around-" Tony said, alarm in his voice.

"I am Groot." Groot said, looking at him pensively. 

"What did he say?" Tony asked, looking at Rocket.

"He says welcome to the Guardians of the Galaxy. Says he's been saying that to you for awhile now but you keep pretending you understand him even though you don't." Rocket said.

"Huh. I should probably figure out how to translate that somehow." Tony said.

"We'll have a lot of time for that in space." Quill said, looking too excited to be contained in the car. "C'mon let's go home already, we have to start packing!"

Home, Tony repeats quietly, a warmth spreading through his chest. 

 


	5. Put on Your Sunday Clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Quill finally fuck off to space.

_They find Gamora at the foot of a mountain in Vormir._  
  
_It had taken them the better part of a week to find Nebula, since it didn’t feel right to go to Vormir without her. They got there three days later and Quill doesn’t know what he expects. There is nothing alive on the planet, and he’s kneeling over her and suddenly the wound he thought had healed felt like it was being ripped open and he couldn’t see her through the tears and-_  
  
_He was pointing his gun at her, Thanos patiently waiting to see what he would do. Gamora looks into his eyes and he knows-_  
  
_“I love you.” Gamora says quietly, and his grip trembles on the gun. “More than you know.”_  
  
_“I love you too.” He says, holding back the words he will never be able to say because he’s delayed long enough, there is too much riding on it but his gun makes no noise and everything has gone quiet-_  
  
He sat up, his breathing coming out sharp and ragged. His mind is reeling with pain and he’s registering the wetness in his eyes when he hears the door open.  
  
Mantis, he thought, silently glad that she would take it all away again, until the pain became something he would deal with  tomorrow. He felt her hand touch his and he waited for the tears and the shaking to stop, but then he suddenly heard Tony’s voice.  
  
“Hey, Star-Lord.” he said, his voice soft and careful, as if Quill would break if he was any louder. “You okay?”  
  
Quill opened his eyes and saw Tony sitting by his bed, and he could see from Tony’s bedhead that he had just woken up. He looked past him and saw the makeshift cot Tony made in the corner of his room, since there wasn’t any other room for him to sleep in.  
  
“Do I have to call Mantis or something?” Tony asked, squeezing Quill’s hand to pull him from his thoughts.  
  
Quill opened his mouth, all too ready to beg Tony to bring Mantis in because he can’t handle the silence she left behind. He doesn’t, though, because he heard Tony continue to talk anyway. “Because I’m not sure normal people talking can beat magic alien touch therapy. But also I’m pretty sure she’s in Drax’s room and I’m not sure if I want to walk into whatever’s happening-“  
  
Quill let out a small laugh, despite everything, and Tony stopped in his tracks. He opened his mouth and closed it, the surprise in his expression giving way to hesitation. “I’m not sure if that’s supposed to comfort me or worry me because now you’re laughing and I don’t think that’s a good sign all things considered.”  
  
“You’re rambling.” Quill said.  
  
“You’d be rambling too if a screaming lunatic woke you up.” Tony said.  
  
“I was screaming?” Quill said, immediately disliking how small his voice sounded.  
  
“I mean not really screaming,” Tony said hurriedly. “If it’s any consolation it was a very manly scream.”  
  
Quill laughed again, and for a moment, it felt like the only thing that mattered was that he was laughing with Tony. For a moment.  
  
“You know, the last time I woke you up like this, you kept me up with your hologram.” Quill said absentmindedly, remembering the second time he woke up after Titan.  
  
“Oh.” Tony said, eyebrows furrowing as he tried to remember. “Oh yeah. You weren’t talking to me at all, which I thought was fair since I shot you like a few hours before.”  
  
“To be fair, I probably wouldn’t have talked to you even if you didn’t shoot me.” Quill said.  
  
Tony looked at him with a guarded expression, as if there was something he wanted to say but didn’t want to, given the circumstances. “Fair point.”  
  
Silence fell upon them, and Quill could feel the buzz of his early thoughts gnawing at him again. His initial thought was to push it back, but the warmth of Tony’s hand on his made him want to try something other than repressing it.  
  
“I keep coming back to Titan and Vormir and -,” Quill began, feeling his throat begin to constrict with fear. “And Gamora. I keep thinking its almost a year behind me, and I’m okay. But...” He drifted off, letting the silence fill in the blanks for him.  
  
”It’s okay if it still hurts you, you know that right?” Tony said, his eyes focusing on his. “Ten years could pass and you’d still have every right to feel just as bad as you did then.  
  
“That doesn’t sound very comforting.” Quill said, trying for sarcastic, but he knows it sounds too bitter for that.  
  
“The point is, that it’s been what, nine months since then, and you’re still here despite everything.” Tony said. “You can still get knocked down by a year old pain but what matters is that you get up despite everything. I mean look at me, a few years ago the idea of space sent me into panic attacks, and now I’m on a spaceship with the best idiots in the galaxy.”  
  
Quill laughed at that last part, which made Tony smile. “You mean that?” Quill finally said.  
  
“About the first part or the best idiots in the galaxy part?” Tony said, and just like that the room felt a little lighter. “Because yes to both.”  
  
Silence fell on them again, but it was punctuated with Tony humming to something that sounded familiar, and it took a while to realize that it was the song from Wall-E.  
  
He let his thoughts drift back to Titan, and he suppressed the urge to backpedal and go back to repressing everything, but Tony was here and he was humming the song he really needed to learn the name of. So he thought about Titan and how he found out about Gamora’s fate and then-  
  
And then he remembered waking up in this very room, with Tony at his side, though he only knew him as Iron Man at the time.  
  
“I never really asked what happened after you knocked me out.” Quill said suddenly. “On Titan.  
  
“Oh.” Tony said, taken aback. “I didn’t really think it was good conversation.”  
  
“Could you tell me?” Quill said, feeling fear creeping in the recesses of his mind just as he always did whenever he thought about Titan.  
  
Tony looked at him, as if he was carefully thinking about how to say no without upsetting him. “I...sure.”  
  
“After I knocked you out, Thanos broke free because I had to let go to shoot you.” Tony said. “But Peter had taken the Gauntlet off, and that made Thanos go after him. Peter tossed the Gauntlet to me and without thinking I put it on and snapped.”  
  
Tony paused, his eyes looking down at his hands as if he was remembering every detail. “I did think about it, contrary to what everyone thinks.” he said, his voice suddenly too quiet. “The moment I had the Gauntlet over my hand I knew what I could do without the remaining two Stones, and if it wasn’t enough it wouldn’t have been too hard to get the last two.”  
  
“Tony-“ Quill began, but Tony held up his hands to quiet him while he talked.  
  
“I thought about all of it. What I could’ve done. What they thought I should’ve done. What I probably should’ve done, now that I think about it. I should have fixed everything with it.” Tony said, looking up at Quill with guilt in his expression. “I could have brought...I could have brought them all back, fixed everything but I panicked and now all the Stones are gone.”  
  
Tony looked away again and Quill immediately realized what he was trying to say.  
  
Maybe in a different time, Quill would have attacked Tony, but after all this time it had never even occured to Quill that the Gauntlet might have brought Gamora back. But then he remembered the silent question everybody was asking Tony when he told them about how he wielded the Gauntlet up until he destroyed it immediately after. Suddenly, Tony not wanting to talk about Titan with him made more sense now, and the worry that was in his face as if he was worried that he crossed some line as he tried to comfort Quill.  
  
He tried to imagine using the Gauntlet himself to fix everything, but then he remembered holding just the Power Stone with everybody else, and the temptation and pain it gave him. He focused on Tony, who had stopped talking ages ago and was just staring expectantly at Quill, as if expecting him to boot him out of the airlock.  
  
And again Quill was laughing, a bittersweet sound that startled Tony. “Look at us. Two fucked up humans fucking off into space.” Quill said, shaking his head. He squeezed Tony’s hand gently, and then they were looking at each other. “Listen, Tony, do you honestly think after everything, I could hate you for that? It never even crossed my mind to blame you until you brought it up.”  
  
Tony seemed to suddenly remember to breath and then he was smiling weakly. “This has to be the weirdest wake up call ever because just a second ago you were the mess and now I’m the mess and-“  
  
“Well, let’s both be a mess together then.” Quill said. “Sort things out together.”  
  
Tony looked at him, as if he couldn’t believe Quill was real, before finally nodding.

* * *

The rest of the ship woke up to Quill and Tony already laughing and drinking coffee. Usually coffee isn't really something Quill drinks since most of the crap they find out in space tastes like crap, but Tony brought some of his fancy Earth coffee and a coffee maker to go with it. Drax took a sip and immediately wanted to drink the whole pot, but Tony managed to swat his hands away and give everyone else a mug of coffee. Groot took one because he loved the warmth, though it mysteriously disappeared once Rocket finished his own mug. Mantis didn't seem to handle the caffeine well, though Tony only laughed and let her keep drinking.

"So, where to now?" Rocket said to no one in particular. 

Everyone's eyes drifted over to Quill, Tony included.

"Well, I was thinking Tony could pick." Quill said, smiling at him.

"As touching as the sentiment is I'm practically a very poorly prepared tourist when it comes to space." Tony said.

"Easy fix!" Rocket said, pulling up a comprehensive map onto the main screen of the ship. "We've got all sorts of shit you'd love, space bars, space casinos, space hookers, space-"

Suddenly the map zoomed into a specific set of coordinates, with a very obvious red exclamation mark over it. "We've got a distress signal not too far from here." Mantis said, "In the Talava System close to the Aitarus star. It seems to be a trader ship."

Quill frowned, before he looked at Tony. "Sorry 'bout that. Looks like we're going to need to take a detour."

"Sorry for what?" Tony said, seemingly unfazed by the sudden change in plans. "This isn't the first time I've had to cancel a vacation because a taco truck was about to fall into a river."

Quill wasn't sure if that was something that actually happened to him, but he nodded anyway. "Alright, detour it is then."

* * *

  Just as Mantis thought, they were responding to a trader ship's distress signal. It was a small pod-shaped ship that small businessmen preferred to use since it was supposed to look fancy and there were see-through bits so you could window shop if you happened to pass by. Large words in an alien language were plastered on the side like a giant advertisement, which roughly translated to 'CITADEL'.

"Doesn't look like it's in distress to me." Quill said, expecting something more explode-y.

"We should still take a closer look." Mantis said.

"Right." Quill said, hoping they could get this over with quickly. An idea crossed his mind and he looked at Tony, beaming at him.

"That doesn't give off serial killer vibes at all." Tony said.

"Alright, me and Tony will go down first, Rocket, get ready to pull us out if anything goes wrong, and the rest of you can be on standby unless something goes wrong." Quill said, trying to ignore the fact that only Mantis was the one who didn't seem to mind taking orders from him.

"So you mean wait for four minutes?" Drax said. "Usually it takes no longer than four minutes for any of our missions to go wrong."

Quill rolled his eyes, tapping on the side of his head. His helmet materialized within moments, and he saw Tony staring. "See something you like?" he said, drawing himself up.

"Actually, I was thinking that your helmet sucks." Tony said, tapping on the arc reactor in his chest. Red began to blossom from it until it covered every inch of his body, and he was in his Iron Man armor. He flew out through an air-locked room in the back, leaving Quill standing there.

"Show off." Quill muttered, earning a loud laugh from Rocket. Quill responded in kind by flipping him off before leaving to follow after Tony.

Quill landed on the trader ship a few seconds after Tony, who seemed to already be conversing with a member of the ship's crew.

"-a hundred percent guarantee you won't regret buying a Hadron upgrade for your fancy suit, none of our customers have been disappointed so far!" the alien said, a small and stout looking thing in a complete black-and-white body suit. Quill felt like he was staring at a deformed Playdough dwarf in astronaut gear.

"Star-Lord, I think the translator you gave me is already breaking." Tony said, tilting his head at the alien. "Because it definitely sounds like he's trying to sell me something."

Quill walked up to them, his eyes wandering all around the ship's interior. He could see similar aliens scurrying around the ship, and most of them quickly ducked out of view whenever Quill stared at them for too long. Other than that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

"We received a distress signal from your ship not too long ago." Quill said, eyes settling on the alien. "You sure there's nothing wrong here?"

"The only wrong thing here is that you aren't buying our latest-" the alien said, until Quill groaned loudly.

"Okay we're leaving before this guy tries to pitch us a sentient vacuum cleaner." Quill said, looking at Tony before pointing back in the direction of their ship.

Tony held up a hand, his gaze fixated on the alien. "We've come all the way. I'm sure little Doughboy here won't mind if we browse."

Quill was about to whine, until the alien suddenly said, "Oh, perfect! Lucky for you I already have some of our stock loaded up here!"

The alien began to scurry to a nearby box with all sorts of knick-knacks in it, but Tony started to walk further into the ship. "Actually, I wanted to see whatever else you have inside."

The alien changed course for the main entrance as soon as he saw Tony walking into the rest of the ship, which was almost funny since Tony was still beating him to it simply by walking. "Th-There is no need! All of our wares are on display here!"

"Customer's always right and all that." Tony said, pushing the alien away with a hand as soon as he caught up. The alien fell backwards, cursing loudly as Tony walked inside.

Quill followed in after him, sneaking another look at the alien as it tried to get back up, but he walked into Tony not a second later. "Hey what the hell-" Quill began, but the words failed in his throat as he saw what Tony was seeing. 

Inside the ship, many more of the same aliens were huddled in the center of the room. It took Quill a second to notice that they were all bound by their wrists. He could immediately tell that this area was supposed to be a giant marketplace, but every display case and shelf was recently emptied, evidenced by the broken glass on most of them. Quill's hand immediately moved to unholster his gun, but he heard the faint crackling of electricity behind him, probably from a plasma gun.

"On your knees." a feminine voice said from behind him, and he felt the gun press into the back of his head.

"Usually the person you're saying that to has to be facing you when you say that-" Quill said automatically, and the next thing he knew he felt his body tighten painfully, and he fell forward onto the ground without so much as a word. His whole body was flaring with pain, which doubled whenever he tried and failed to move. He tried to open his mouth to say something, but all he could manage was a pathetic groan.

He heard Tony's repulsors go off, and the next thing he heard was the sound of a body hitting a wall before sliding into the ground. He felt hands on him and the next thing he knew, Tony was helping him up. Quill still couldn't move his body, so he was leaning against Tony. "Must be rough to be the first to get knocked out in the middle of a fight." he said, and though Quill couldn't see it, he could tell from his voice that Tony was smirking.

Quill tried to say something just as sassy, but all that came out was another pathetic groan.

"I'll just call Rocket over, I'm sure he'll want to see this-" Tony began, but suddenly a small disc sprouted in the dead center of Tony's helmet. "What the hell-"

And suddenly Quill was being electrocuted again, his body locking into place with an even greater pain than before. He landed on his back, unable to cry out in pain. He saw his helmet's HUD retreat from his vision, and he saw Tony crouched low to the ground, a fist pressed to the ground and his other hand limp by his side. Quill felt his heart sink, because even from his position, he could tell that the Iron Man's lights had gone out.

Quill was trying to force a scream out of his throat, panic causing his already rapid heartbeat to increase. Tony's lights were out, even the light where his arc reactor was had gone out, neither of them were moving and he's pretty sure even if he could move now, he'd find out that his comms were fried from the repeated electrocution.

He heard footsteps and saw a six foot humanoid walk in between Tony and Quill. Her skin was completely white, and he could even see the faint traces of green veins on her skin. The woman had a large cattle-prod looking gun resting against her shoulder, and she was looking at Tony. Her hands trailed over the armor, and she was whistling appreciatively. "You don't see a robot like this everyday." she turned around, looking down at Quill. "How much is it worth? Because just from that brief demo earlier, I'm pretty sure this things worth more than this whole ship."

Quill tried to spit words into the woman's face, but he still couldn't form anything coherent, so he settled for spitting at her. Unfortunately he couldn't do even that, so now he had spit trailing down the side of his mouth. 

"Cute. Heard it call you Star-Lord." the woman said. "That supposed to mean something?"

Quill glared at her, but the woman only laughed.

"I'm sure I can find someone who wants you, even if you aren't famous." the woman said. "A pretty face like that can get me at least enough units to buy a new gun."

Quill fought the instinct to flip her off, but stopped himself when he realized he could move his hands now. He tested his feet and found that he could barely manage to move them, and that most of the feeling had come back to the tips of his fingers. If he played his cards right, he could shoot her before she even realized what was happening. As soon as the plan formed in his head he could already feel his doubts stopping him before he could even act. What if he was overestimating how much he could do right now? What if his gun was just as fried as Tony's armor? God, what if Tony wasn't even-

Suddenly she crumpled onto the ground, and Tony was standing over her, his right arm forming a small futuristic looking mallet. Tony's lights were back on and Quill felt a breath he didn't even know he was holding, because he'd been so afraid that the light that was constantly in his chest had to be important, and the fact that it was out had terrified him and it felt like Titan all over again but Tony was alive-

Tony flicked off the electrocuting disc that was still stuck on his faceplate, before he extended a hand out to Quill. 

Quill stared at him.

"Oh right." Tony said, pulling the hand back before walking over to him. "Paralyzed. Kinda slipped my mind."

Tony crouched down and he thought Tony was going to have him lean against him like last time, but suddenly he was completely off the ground and the only thing he could see was Tony as he retracted his faceplate to get a good look at Quill.

"C'mon, Pete, don't tell me you're completely paralyzed now because as nice as it is to carry you around bridal-style, it will eventually get tiring." Tony said, smiling innocently down at him.

Quill finally managed to force out a word, although it was barely more than a whisper.

"Sorry, what was that?" Tony said, craning his head towards Quill so he could hear him better.

Quill fought through the pain involved in leaning in closer to Tony's ear before repeating, "Asshole."

Tony laughed. His helmet was covering his face again, and Quill was silently glad to see that the lights were still there. "Rocket, I think we might need some help after all."

* * *

 It had taken half an hour before Quill regained all of his motor functions, and in that time Rocket made sure to milk every second he got to insult him without having to hear a reply.

Tony was with him the whole time he was recovering, occasionally joining in on poking fun at Quill whenever Rocket did. He was holding Quill's helmet in one hand and a blowtorch from his gauntlet in the other, and Tony claimed that he was 'fixing it Stark-style'.

Rocket left as soon as he realized Quill was talking again, which was just in time for Drax and Mantis to come back from cleaning up the rest of the mess. They made sure the woman was taken care of and the rest of the captives freed (though he was told later that one of them wanted to apologize for trying to misdirect Quill and Tony when they got on board. Apparently he was smart enough not to get electrocuted by the space-woman and decided to do what she wanted.)

"The thing on your chest." Quill said. "You said you needed it for your heart awhile back, but then you took it out. Why's it back again?"

Tony paused. "I had...complicated heart issues back then, yeah. I took it out a few years later after fixing said heart problems, but I put it back after awhile because it was a hard habit to kick, I guess." Tony said. "I guess I put it back as a statement. That I'm Iron Man 24/7 now. Though if you don't wanna be philosophical I actually do need it again because it's where I keep the armor."

Quill stared at the faint light in Tony's chest. "So it doesn't mean anything if it goes out then?"

Tony gave him a quizzical look, before realization dawned on him. "I turned it off manually back then. I've already upgraded the suit against most EMP's way before Titan. Just needed to trick her into letting her guard down. But on the off chance that the arc reactor goes out...that kind of kills the suit until I fix it."

"Oh." Quill said, breathing a little easier now. "Good to know."

"Also not to ruin the mood or anything, but my eyes are up here." Tony said, and Quill realized he'd been staring at his arc reactor the whole time. Quill looked up and he saw that Tony was smiling.

"Sorry today didn't go the way we planned it-"

"We have a plan?"

"You know what I mean, dipshit." Quill said, rolling his eyes. "Trying to be nice here and you're ruining it by being an ass."

Tony laughed, putting Quill's helmet down on the desk by the table. "Trust me, Peter. While this day has definitely been a roller coaster, nothing's been ruined."

Quill looked at Tony smiling warmly at him, and he felt a low warmth fill his chest. "Good. It'd kinda be a bummer if it the first day of your space vacation was already a bust."

"Honestly, as long as I come back to Earth alive this whole vacation would be a success." Tony said.

"Shouldn't be too hard." Quill said.

Tony gave him a look. "It hasn't even been a day and already I was involved in a life-or-death situation."

"Don't be overdramatic, you drama queen." Quill said, sitting up and stretching his arms out. God, he really appreciated having feeling in his limbs now that he knew what it was like without it. "You're alive, aren't you?"

"Despite your greatest efforts, yes." Tony said sarcastically.

"I'm no genius but I'm pretty sure you mean thanks to my greatest efforts." Quill said, moving over so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Well, I am a genius, and I meant what I said." Tony said.

"Smartass."

"Dipshit."

"Well, this dipshit's about to go and plan out where we're gonna go next."

"And this smartass is going to upgrade your helmet." 

With that, Quill left Tony to rejoin the rest of the team. They'd already left the system they were in and were currently just floating around aimlessly until they figured out where to go. Mantis brought up the map again and Quill considered it carefully, drawing their flight path over it, humming quietly while he did.

"-lots of world out there," he heard Rocket mumble along, before the raccoon suddenly cursed. "Goddammit, Quill! Now you've got me stuck on this song for god knows how long."

"Wall-E is an intergalactic treasure." Quill said, looking offended.

"You're literally humming the three lines that actually made it into the movie over and over again!"

"So are you." Quill shot back, grinning as Rocket sneered and grumbled something unkind under his breath.

He looked out into the open void beyond the ship's window, sighing happily at the sight of stars everywhere. He didn't even realize he was feeling homesick up until now, though there were some things he would miss back on Earth.

Well, they would still have to go back to Earth soon to drop off Tony, and maybe they could stay for awhile before leaving again. And then after that they could come back and maybe Tony would leave with them again on another vacation. He stopped, getting a feeling of deja vu when he doubt began to eat away at his plans. 

Well, he'll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've hit 1300 hits and 118 kudos and that makes me so giddy so if you're reading this i just wanna say thank you for making it this far :D  
> After this the StarkQuill should finally be ramping up so that should be nice


	6. Down to Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's not sure how he ended up alone in a pirate space ship light years away from home.
> 
> (also contains lots of angry and swearing Tony, and a lot of violence and blood mention)

Tony fucking hated space. Tony fucking hated getting kidnapped, though those immediately stopped after he became Iron Man. Now, some fucking space pirates had kidnapped him, and now he was inside giant fucking ship in fucking space, and he still doesn't know where the rest of the Guardians are.

They were laughing over their latest success on a desert planet called Tuchanka, where they were tasked with taking out a giant worm that was big enough to dwarf their own ship. He remembered vividly their ship being frozen in its tracks as a giant ship pulled them into it's hull. Their ship had locked down and they couldn't access any of the controls, not until Tony and Rocket had forced the ship's systems to reboot. But by then, their ship had been breached and it all went downhill from there. He remembered watching Drax immediately charge towards their enemies, only to crumple to the ground with what looked like a metal straightjacket keeping him from moving his arms. Then all of them began to open fire on the invaders, but they had a small orb that disabled most of their weapons with what had to be another EMP field. Someone shot in their direction and he heard Quill crumble to the ground behind him, and Rocket fell to the ground without so much as a peep. Tony's armor made it through the EMP and he began firing away at the invaders, with Groot exhibiting a violence that Tony has learned to expect from the tree. One of the invaders jabbed Groot in the neck with a giant needle looking thing, and then even he fell, and Tony's heart sank when he saw Groot began to lose his color.

After that it was only a matter of time. Tony took out as many as he could, but eventually they overwhelmed him. The last thing he remembered was his armor in reduced to tatters, and he felt a burning pain in his side. He looked down and saw blood flowing above his right hip, and he felt something slam into the back of his head and he blacked out.

He woke up in a dimly lit room with nothing to keep him company but the restraints that covered his forearms and the occasional angry guard who would slide him his food and ignore Tony's heated questions.

Today, the guard slid him what looked like mashed potatoes with clear rocks on top, and Tony thanked him by telling him to fuck off. The guard said something that was probably an insult in his home planet, but to Tony it just sounded like 'marshmallows' over and over again.

Once Marshmallows left, the restraints broke apart and fell to the ground, though Tony wasn't too worried about making noise since nobody ever seemed to come whenever Tony would start yelling and hitting the walls. Tony had broken through the restraints an hour after he woke up on the first day, and he'd spent the rest of his time trying to disassemble it and reassembling it before Marshmallows came back to check on him. So far, Tony figured out that the restraints were made of something he couldn't identify, but that it used extremely powerful electromagnets to keep it in place. He'd figured that out the hard way when half of the restraints had stuck to the wall, and it took Tony some time before he could get it unstuck.

He tapped the side of his head and his helmet partially formed, giving him a visor to give the device another scan. Luckily for him, the aliens had only prepared to take in the Guardians sans Tony, so they barely knew anything about him, or what he could do. They settled for sticking him in a fortified room and hoping for the best. Tony still couldn't form his complete armor though, since most of the nanomachines were damaged in his last fight. For now, he could create simples things like a repulsor gauntlet and maybe even a whole armored arm, if he really had to. He's not too worried though, because he's done more with less and he has his whole team to rescue. 

He'd finally figured out a way to hook up the restraint's electromagnets to his arc reactor to maximize and minimize the magnet strength, though he wasn't too sure what he'd do with it. He rebuilt half of the restraints only around his left forearm, and left the rest on the ground.

He pointed the magnet at the new food tray and it immediately flew and stuck itself onto the magnet. He watched his food fall to the ground, and it somehow looked even less appetizing. He probably should've eaten it first, before he fucked around with it. 

Just another reason to break out today, Tony thought, his head already buzzing with ideas.

* * *

Marshmallows was right on schedule again, and he opened the small slit in the metal door to slide his dinner in.

Immediately Tony charged his magnet, focusing it onto the slit. As soon as his food had gone through the slit(it was a weird purple goo this time), Tony moved the tray aside and pulled with the magnet, hearing a surprised yelp from Marshmallows as he found himself flying to the door. He heard a satisfying thunk when Marshmallow's slammed into the door, and another thunk when he fell to the ground. Tony peered through the slit and saw nothing that resembled a key, but he did see a gun on his person.

Plan B then, Tony thought, looking around his cell for what was hopefully the last time. Tony pressed the magnet onto the door and began to supercharge it with his arc reactor. He formed his armor around his feet to lock himself in place, right before he discharged the magnet right into the door. Immediately he felt resistance as the magnet attempted to push the door off his hinges, but it was still too weak to do anything but push Tony back. He began to feed more and more of the arc reactor into the magnet, feeling it heat up as the door began to groan. Eventually the magnet overloaded and fell apart onto the ground, but not without shooting the door off its hinges and into the wall behind it.

Unfortunately, Marshmallows was still in the way, and now he was the meat in a very painful metal sandwhich.

He was still alive though. Hopefully. 

Tony stepped out of his cell and tried to move the door off of Marshmallows. It dropped to the ground with a painful clang, and Marshmallows slumped to the ground again. Tony took the gun from him and examined it, trying to get a feel of how to use it without actually using it just yet. It expanded and retracted just like the guns the other Guardians had, though that was where the similarities ended. It had a pointed end that he could probably use for stabbing, and he still couldn't understand what it would fire, but a gun was a gun and hopefully the most he'd do with it was pull the trigger.

He looked down at Marshmallows again, went back into his cell, and left the crummy food right on top of his helmet. Just as a last fuck you before he escaped completely from this ship.

He crouched low and began to explore the ship, ducking away whenever a guard or two would pass. He'd try to listen in whenever this happened, but he heard nothing important unless he wanted to find out how Guard #4 had a wife who was probably sleeping around.

Eventually he found another door that looked exactly like his, and he opened the slit in the middle to peer inside. Nobody was inside. This repeated for five more doors, and by door number six he was beginning to lose hope.

What if they were locked up somewhere else? What if they only needed to turn in the Guardians that they knew of for whatever it is they captured them for, so they left Tony here all alone while his team was on some planet galaxies away?

Panic began to rise in his throat but he fought it back. He didn't have time to panic. If they weren't here then he'd just single-handedly take over this whole ship and fly around the universe until he found them. Easy enough.

"Hey!" a voice said from behind him, and he immediately turned around to the guard pointing a gun at him. Before the guard could get another word out, Tony fired his gun, aiming straight for the head. The guard crumpled to the ground soundlessly, with a new hole decorating his face. The gunshot wasn't soundless though, and he could hear feet shuffling in the distance and voices rising in alarm. He quickly ducked behind a wall and held his gun close to him, his mind flying all over the place as he tried to piece together a plan.

The footsteps got closer. Their voices became shouts as they saw the body Tony left behind, and it wouldn't be too long before they found Marshmallows and his open jail cell. 

The footsteps were so close it drove his mind into a frenzy, but not before he could at least estimate how many there were. One was leading the charge, and there was at least two more behind him, probably covering the lead's back. Tony leapt out of his hiding spot and thrust his free hand forward. By the time it crashed into the guard his gauntlet formed and his repulsors fired, launching the guard into the two- no, three- others behind him. Two of them fell down with the lead and Tony immediately lifted his gun and shot at the guard before he could register what was happening. Once the fourth guard was down, he sprayed his gun towards the other three before they could get back onto their feet.

The alarms were raised now, but he didn't have time to register that. He immediately crouched over the bodies and began to inspect them for gear, and he came up with another gun. He would've gotten it all but carrying five guns on him didn't seem too practical. Tony ran down the hallway farthest from his cell, hoping it would take him to where he needed to go. He found himself in an open space and he realized this had to be their weapons storage, because there were all sorts of guns he couldn't recognize. He closed the door behind him and surveyed the room, taking in gun after gun until his eyes settled on something that was familiar.

Thirteen minutes and three guards later, Tony managed to disassemble most of the guns and bound it to the explosives that were just like the ones he found under his doormat back on Earth. He knew how to work them, especially since Rocket had helpfully installed around seven of these doormats around the Compound. He had four shrapnel bombs and a few more basic explosives, but hopefully that was all he would need. 

There were guards crowding outside of the weapons storage now, he knew since he had taken out almost an entire squad while he was trying to shit some weapons together. He held one of the shrapnel bombs and opened the door, flinging it farther than he normally could have with the help of his armor. The shrapnel bomb was in between seven guards when Tony shot a repulsor blast at it. Tony hit the ground right after, shielding his face with his armored arm. Some shrapnel made its way to Tony, pinging harmlessly off of the armor. When he stood back up, the guards closest to the bomb were unrecognizable, and the ones farther were torn apart by the shrapnel. Tony marched past them and continued to make his way around the ship, mapping out the whole area in his head so he couldn't get lost. Hopefully.

Eventually he came upon a giant important looking door, and before he could do anything, it opened. He counted eight guns trained on him, and a large metallic man standing in the middle. Tony was frozen. He wouldn't be able to pull his gun out on time, but maybe he could use his repulsors to push himself away from here. But if they open fired and hit the bag of bombs Tony now had, it would be all over. He didn't come this far for it to be all over.

"Who are you?" the man in the middle said. Tony took one look at him and assigned a nickname off the top of his head. "We weren't informed of you when we were assigned to capture the Guardians of the Galaxy."

Tony glared at Metallica, his mind taking inventory of everything he had while he was talking. He had three more shrapnel bombs and two simply explosive ones in his bag. He had a gun holstered in his side and he could probably create repulsor gauntlets if it came to it, but he still had eight guns trained on him.

"Tony Stark." he said. He could do this, rambling was easy, especially when his life depended on it. But rambling back on Earth was easier since everyone knew who he was, but here he was- "I was the one who singlehandedly took out Thanos' fleet when he tried to invade Earth years ago."

With that, he could feel a wave of unease falling on the eight soldiers. Some of them started looking at each other, mumbling about the rumors of when he had flown a nuke through the portal. Metallica however, looked displeased.

"And after that, I killed Thanos on his own planet." Tony said, pressing on. If he couldn't intimidate Metallica, he could at least discourage his lackeys. "Heard about that, didn't you?"

Metallica tilted his head. "Perhaps so. But that means nothing now, when you are powerless and reduced to using our own guns against us."

Tony suppressed a smile. Metallica at least entertaining the idea that he was right sent another wave of unease onto his soldiers, and he could see them fidgeting more and more. "Powerless? You know Thanos had the Infinity Stones, right?"

Tony cast a look downwards, and Metallica's gaze followed it down onto the blue glowing power source smack in the middle of his chest. "I have an Infinity Stone right here. So you might want to reconsider pointing those guns at me."

He directed that last part to a single soldier, who immediately lowered his gun. The ones beside him saw and began to follow suit. Metallica didn't notice, since his eyes were completely fixated on Tony's arc reactor.

"So. Point your guns at the guy with the all-powerful Infinity Stone, or drop them." Tony said, stressing a tone of finality in his voice. The one he was focusing on dropped his gun immediately and ran screaming, and that was all it took for the others to follow. 

Metallica finally seemed to notice his soldiers and he lifted his fist before closing it, and he could see all of his guards crumpling to the ground. "Cowards." Metallica said.

Tony's stomach sank when he realized that their helmets had collapsed inwards, and blood began to pour out of their helmets. He pointed a finger towards Tony and made a 'come here' gesture, and Tony felt his body be pulled along as Metallica used some sort of magnet power to pull him through his arc reactor casing. 

He was an arm's reach from Metallica now, and approaching even faster. Tony began to panic, his mind flying unbidden to the memories of Stane standing over him with his arc reactor in hand, and of Steve bashing his shield into the arc reactor again and again-

And Tony had to move.

It had to be a straight magnetic pull from Metallica's hand and Tony's arc reactor, and Tony's flung his bag in between them. Immediately the bag full of bombs stuck onto his hand, and Tony raised his repulsor towards the bombs.

He was too close, exploding it this close to him would kill them both-

The bombs began to fall down and Tony stopped moving towards Metallica and he had to SHOOT-

As soon as he made the blast, he overworked the arc reactor and his armor, redirecting all of the nanomachines towards hands as he tried to assemble a familiar circular shield in between him and Metallica-

The shield had barely completed when the blast knocked him off his feet, and everything faded to black when his head slammed into the floor behind him.

* * *

When he came to, smoke was filling his lungs and he was coughing. There were some pieces of his armor clinging to his arm, but the rest of it was completely destroyed. He recalled it back into the arc reactor and looked around him. The entire control room was on fire now, and he had to move quickly. He got onto his feet and almost fell down. His vision was swimming and he pulled his shirt over his nose to try to keep the smoke away, no matter how useless it felt. He stumbled forward into the burning room, his eyes hazily scanning the machines that were still operational. Almost all of them were taken down, but one of them remained operational. He made his way to it, his breathing becoming more shallow and rapid by the moment. His hands slammed onto the console and an interface rose up, and he squinted at it. His first lucky break in this god-awful ship. It seemed to control the doors, and his hands flew across the interface, manually unlocking and opening every single door and cell in the ship. 

After that he hobbled out of the burning room, placing his hand on the console outside of it to shut the door. The mechanism in the walls began to whine and groan with effort, but the doors didn't close. He looked behind him and saw even more fire beginning to spread. He had to move.

He continued to wander down the hallway, groaning in pain as he fell to his knees. He looked down and saw shrapnel sticking out of his left leg, and he noticed more on his left arm when he tried to remove it. His left arm was shaking again, and he cursed it. It always had to be his fucking left arm.

He tried to stand up but pain lanced through his leg and he fell down again, using his hands to stop himself from falling flat onto the floor. His left arm began to shake even harder as he rested his weight on it, so he rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

He'd come so far, but this was as far as he was going to make it. He had to hope that if Quill and the others were on the ship, they'd be able to find their own ship and make it out of here.

The thought made his heart hurt.

Everything began to go dark again, though whether that was from the smoke or Tony being on the verge of collapse again, he wouldn't find out. 

He saw something stand over him and it...seemed to remove its own head before placing it onto Tony. In an instant he could breath again, and he was gasping as he was forced to stand.

"-ease be okay, please be okay-" he heard Quill say, and he realized he was wearing Quill's helmet now. 

"I'm..." Tony said, leaning completely against Quill as he began drag him away from the fire. "I'm here."

"-please, Tony you have to be okay-" Quill continued, as if he couldn't hear Tony. He tried to muster more words but he couldn't say anything, and he's not sure how much time has passed when he sees the familiar interior of their own ship.

* * *

 

He's back in Quill's room, though you could argue that this was Tony's room as well, since he'd spent more than eight days in here. He sat up and felt bandages tightly wound around his left arm and leg, though the whole room began to spin as soon as he sat up.

Immediately he was attacked by Quill, who decided it would be fine to wrap him in a crushing bear hug. 

"Thank god you're okay." Quill said quietly, and he could hear him clearly because he was right there and he was hugging him, and Tony was eventually hugging back.

"I should be the one saying that." Tony said indignantly, though it was half-hearted. "I was the one who fought through a whole ship to free you guys."

Quill pulled away, though his hands were still on Tony's shoulders. He was grinning now, and Tony was kind enough not to call him out on Quill's misty eyes. "You did, you asshole."

Tony just looked at Quill, smiling. He wanted to say something snarky again, but he just pulled Quill back in for another hug. "God, I missed you." Tony said, and he wasn't too surprised at how genuine it sounded.

Quill just hugged him harder in response.

* * *

 

The morning after, Quill wasn't sleeping by the bed or in Tony's cot. Tony got up and walked out into the rest of the ship, seeing the rest of the Guardians talking among themselves in hushed whispers. Rocket was standing on the table so he could be level with Quill, and he was whisper-screaming something at Quill. Quill was on the defensive, and Mantis seemed to be trying to get the two of them to calm down. Groot was chiming in every now and again with a quiet 'I am Groot', though nobody seemed to pay attention to him. Drax was the one who saw him.

"Tony!" Drax said loudly, shocking the rest of them. "We were just talking about you behind your back!"

Quill thwacked him on the shoulder.

"What's up?" Tony said, walking over to them. He tried to ignore the doubt festering in the back of his mind. 

"We were just-" Quill said.

"Talking about taking you back to Earth." Rocket said, cutting him off. The two glared at each other again although Quill remained silent. "It's been eleven Earth days and counting, and you're probably dying to go home after everything."

"It is not that we do not want you here." Mantis said hurriedly. "We just...worry. And we feel horrible."

"Why?" Tony said, surprised.

"This was supposed to be a get-away from Earth." Quill said, not quite looking at him. "One of the reasons I wanted you to come with us for awhile was because it was supposed to be fun."

"Quill cried over you." Drax added helpfully. Quill thwacked him on the shoulder again. "What? You were crying when you got back to the ship with Tony-"

Tony laughed, shaking his head. That got their attention, and they were all looking at him now. "Okay. You know, literally two days before we were fighting a giant serpent thing on a distant planet, right?"

Rocket laughed. "Still can't forget stuffing down all those bombs down its throat."

"Right?" Tony said, smiling now. Little by little the tension in the room was dissolving. 

"And Drax wouldn't stop attacking it's blown up corpse." Quill said, smiling now. Their eyes met and Tony was glad for it, because he couldn't stand the thought of Quill feeling guilty over him.

"I had to put him to sleep." Mantis added.

"It was a worthy battle, worthy of an equally epic ending." Drax said. "Of course I had to."

"I am Groot." Groot said, and they all laughed.

"I don't think you're quite off the hook for that just yet, Groot." Tony said, and Groot lowered his head dejectedly.

After awhile they went silent again, though the tension was no longer there. "So. You said it was just one of the reasons you wanted me along right? The whole vacation thing." Tony said, looking at Quill.

"Yeah." Quill said, smiling bashfully. "Having you around was another, and I thought it'd be fun."

Tony ignored the feeling in his chest seeing Quill smile like that. He filed it away under 'Things to Procrastinate Towards'. "And I did have fun. Besides, it's not like this was my first rodeo. Earth isn't exactly a paradise."

"But I should probably go back." Tony said. "You guys can stay with me again until you leave, and then maybe if you ever need help, just drop by Earth and I'll-"

"Really?" Quill said, eyes alight. 

"You've already been crashing in my house for awhile now, I might as well start crashing in your...house-slash-ship."

"Now that that's settled." Rocket said, jumping down from the table to chart a course for Earth. "We can finally start heading towards somewhere again."

With that, everyone went off to do their own thing again, though Quill stayed with Tony.

"What exactly were you whispering about then?" Tony asked, looking at Quill innocently.

Quill looked away, scratching at the back of his head. "When to bring you home. I thought you needed a few days to recover before we took you back, but Rocket said you could recover just fine on Earth."

Tony continued to stare at him, obviously unsatisfied with the answer. "I didn't want you to leave just yet because I was worried that you wouldn't want to come back to space with us, if that was ever going to be a thing. Thought I needed more time to convince you that it was worth it." Quill continued.

"It is, though." Tony said. "Worth it, I mean. You, the team, this whole trip, really."

Quill smiled at that, though Tony could swear Quill was blushing.

"Cut yourself some slack, Star-Lord." Tony continued. "If I had to leave a review it'd be a solid four out of five."

"Just a four?" Quill said, looking a little offended. 

"What do you expect? I had to share my room with a guy who snores."

"Your room?" Quill said, feigning hurt. "It's my room, and I do _not_ snore."

"I actually have a recording of it, if you wanna hear."

"You wouldn't!" Quill said, immediately changing his tune.

Tony laughed, not at all remembering when he was desperately hoping against hope that Quill would come for him even as everything was burning down around him, nor was he thinking about when Quill was hugging him in their room.

 

But even if he was, it's not like it was _that_ weird. 

He pushed the thought away again for procrastination later, because right now Quill was asking him if they could get a raccoon on Earth and dress it up just to fuck with Rocket.

Nope, not weird at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That should be the last of the action-y chapters for now, just really wanted to write one of those before they went back to Earth, hehe


	7. It Only Takes a Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quill gets a good look at Tony Stark.

He's not sure how Tony does it, Quill thinks for the millionth time that day.  
  
It started when they finally re-entered the Milky Way, and they were bombarded with messages from Earth that never reached them until now.  
  
A majority of them were from a Pepper Potts, and the rest were one or two messages from names Quill couldn’t recognize.  
  
Tony smiled apologetically before moving the messages into his phone. He sat down on the table and worked through the messages, his faint smile working its way down to a gaunt expression.  
  
Quill wanted to say something, but Tony’s tapped away on the phone and placed it flat on the table. A projection rose up and Pepper Potts was there, more or less. She seemed distraught, worried and angry all at the same time, though she did a good job of hiding it under a thin smile. Tony didn’t seem to notice and was smiling away, as if he was calling her from Hawaii instead of space.  
  
“Tony, why haven’t you returned any of my calls or responded to any of my messages?” Pepper started, and Quill was under the immediate impression that this wasn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation. “We’ve been worried sick and Rhodey was almost convinced that you were dead or worse, but Peter convinced him to wait a few more days.”  
  
“Cell receptions pretty bad, not gonna lie.” Tony said, shrugging. “On the plus side, I have one or seven ideas on fixing that the next time around.”  
  
“The public’s going to want to know you’re returning, you should’ve seen the news after your week was up.” Pepper said. “Half of them were convinced you started sleeping around with half the galaxy and the other half was convinced you were dead.”  
  
Tony’s mouth twitched at the remark, though he didn’t say anything about it. “Walk me through it then, what’s the game plan?”  
  
“When will you be back?” Pepper asked.  
  
“The guys said I’ll be back in an hour or less.” Tony said. “Please don’t tell me you’re thinking landing in Central Park or something-“  
  
“Actually I was thinking a video message released to the public.” Pepper said, though she was smiling now. “But your idea sounds much better.”  
  
Tony smiled, shaking his head in defeat. “I’ll see what I can do.”  
  
“And Tony?” Pepper said, and something about her voice had changed. Tony seemed to pick up on what it was and his facade lowered, and Quill could practically see the weight on his shoulders.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Good to have you back.” Pepper said, smiling now. Tony stared at her for awhile before smiling back.

* * *

Quill’s not sure how Tony does it, he thought again as they landed in Times Square. They exit the ship, though Rocket and Groot stay behind to park it somewhere more practical. Tony’s immediately acting like he’s being welcomed at a red carpet event and he’s answering questions left and right, as if he’s done this a million times before.  
  
It took Quill a second to realize that he probably has, and he’s not sure how he feels about that.  
  
He remembered Tony telling him that he had his arc reactor back on as if to say that he was Iron Man 24/7 now, and Quill only realized now what that meant. Even outside of the suit, Tony was still a hero. When he wasn’t beating up villains, Tony was cleaning up after their messes and working on improving the world with his company. And when he was literally going above and beyond that by leading Earth into what might as well be their Space Age.  
  
Quill sees all that and more, and he feels himself smiling despite the hundreds of microphones in his face and the thousands of questions that are being thrown his way.  
  
Tony looked back at him through his shades, the smile he was wearing for the crowd turning into something more when he saw Quill. He nudged Quill along and now they were walking side by side through the crowd.  
  
“What the hell are you grinning like that for?” Tony asked.  
  
“Just the usual.” Quill said.  
  
Tony rolled his eyes and went back to appeasing the crowds. Quill chimed in once or twice, laughing whenever Tony made a joke or adding to his more serious conversations.  
  
Whenever the reporters would get too pessimistic or pushy, Quill would diffuse the situation with a joke that would either leave them laughing or stunned into silence. Either way, it worked and they continued to move through the crowd.  
  
Eventually they made their way to Tony’s car (which, if you asked Quill, was a serious downgrade from their spaceship) and drove away.  
  
Mantis was giggly from all the attention, and Drax seemed just as happy for whatever reason.  
  
Tony finally took off his shades and tossed it aside. “I did not miss that.” he said, his shoulders slumping.  
  
“I don’t know how you do it.” Quill said, looking at Tony. “I’m surprised you haven’t lost your mind after the first few press conferences.”  
  
“Bold of you to assume I haven’t already lost my mind.” Tony said, smirking. “All I’ve been saying the past hour was different versions of ‘I was off in space with my friends the aliens, the raccoon, and the talking tree.’”  
  
They were both laughing now, and Quill was happy to see Tony had completely shrugged off his facade for the public. His body was significantly more relaxed than it was awhile ago, and Tony’s smile reached his eyes and just hearing him laugh makes Quill want to keep laughing and-  
  
And Quill doesn’t know how to feel about that.

* * *

They pull up into the Compound's driveway, and Quill is the first to step out. He loved coming back home to this place whenever they went back to Earth. The first time they were here it was more of a getaway than anything, but over time, Quill's begun to consider it as home. He's admiring the view when Tony stands beside him.

"God, it's good to be back." Tony said. It looked like he was about to say something else, but his phone started ringing. He took it out of his pocket and stared at it as if he pulled it out of the trash. "Nevermind, already want to go back up to space."

"Who is it?" Quill asked.

"A bunch of important people, I'm guessing." Tony said, pocketing his phone without looking at it. "Not even one day since I got back on Earth and already I'm loaded with bullshit."

"You could ditch." Quill offered, grinning. "Ooh, you can finally let me fly around in one of your armors!"

"I never said I'd do that." Tony said immediately. "But I can't. This is all important because space is space and I'm the one running around with aliens nowadays."

"You sure?" Quill said. "C'mon, we just got back! It won't kill them if they wait a day longer."

"Actually, it might." Tony said. Their gazes drifted over to Rocket, who was pointing at the doormats. He couldn't hear him clearly from where he was, but he was pretty sure Rocket wasn't sure which ones were legit or which ones would blow your legs off. "I'm already a few days off schedule and I promised I'd get everything sorted out today."

"When did you have time to schedule a meeting?" Quill said skeptically. "I was with you the whole time once we got off the ship."

"Five meetings, actually." Tony said, smiling mischievously as he pulled out his phone again. He held it up so Quill could see the screen, and immediately he was frowning. It was a picture of him sleeping back in the car, and his head was lolling in the camera's direction. Mantis was in the shot, making a peace sign with one hand and pointing to Quill with the other. Drax was barely in the background, his stoic expression fixated on the camera. "Honestly, falling asleep around your friends is like, Rule #1 for getting your picture taken or dicks drawn on you."

"Noted." Quill said sourly. Tony flashed a smile at him before pocketing the phone. 

"Anyway, looks like I have to run all over the country before the day is over." Tony said. He yelled over to Rocket and the rest and waved goodbye. 

"Wait." Quill said, grabbing him by the shoulder to stop him. An idea was forming in his head, and it must have showed since Tony frowned.

"That's the same face you made before you tried microwaving cereal and milk." Tony said.

"This is different." Quill said dismissively. "What if I come with you?"

"To work." Tony said, deadpan. 

"To work." Quill repeated more enthusiastically. "Why not, right?"

Tony narrowed his eyes at him. "You're not going to do something embarrassing, are you?"

"No." Quill said. Tony narrowed his eyes even further. "Okay fine, I was, but that's off the table now. I was just thinking we can make a day of it. In between whatever you have to do, I'll drag us somewhere fun for a bit so you don't explode by the end of the day. Sound good?"

Tony continued glaring at him, but eventually gave up. "Fine. Don't touch anything or anyone, and don't say anything stupid."

"Easy enough." Quill said, following Tony as he walked back to the car. "Wait, are we taking your car?"

"Yes, stupid." Tony said, opening the car door for Quill to get in. "I can't exactly fly my high-tech suit everywhere. Intimidates people a little too much, plus it's not exactly low profile."

"So we're taking the car." Quill repeated slowly, staring at Tony despite his exasperated expression.

"You know we haven't even left yet and already, I am beginning to regret this." Tony said, shutting the car door. Quill grinned and Tony continued to look disappointed. 

Tony's armor extended out from the arc reactor until it covered every inch of him, and Quill couldn't help but watch the whole process. Despite repeatedly saying that a lot of things on Earth were obsolete compared to space-tech, even Quill had to admit that Tony's armor was in a league of its own.

"As flattering as it is to have you stare at me every time I do that," Tony said, and he could hear the smirk through his mask. Quill flushed before averting his gaze, as if he was caught looking at Tony undress, instead. That made him flush even harder. "We do have places to be."

Quill tapped the side of his head and his helmet sprung into place, and he could feel the familiar thrum of his boots that followed every time. He kicked off into the air and his jet boots shot him into the sky. He looked down at the ground, feeling the familiar rush flowing through him whenever he took to the skies. "What's taking so long, Tony?" he yelled into his comms. "We've got places to be!"

Immediately he saw a flash of red pass him and he looked up, watching Tony increase the distance between them exponentially.

"Show off." Quill muttered, and he heard Tony laugh in response.

* * *

 

Eventually Tony slowed down (by a lot, he would keep saying) so Quill could keep up. 

"Shit." Tony said, and suddenly they were landing by a random fancy looking store in the middle of the city. Quill landed a few seconds later, just in time to see Tony's armor flow back into the arc reactor, earning a few gasps and pictures from the nearby bystanders. Quill got some of his pictures taken too, and before he could get to signing any of their faces or something, Tony pulled him away and into the store.

"This doesn't look important." Quill said, looking around. They were in a tux store, and Tony was already talking to the shop owner. They seemed familiar with each other, and the owner left quickly after Tony said something.

"I can't exactly show up to my meetings dressed in this." Tony said, gesturing vaguely to himself. He was wearing an oil-stained shirt and some jeans. After another second, Quill was pretty sure Tony was wearing one of Quill's old shirts, and he didn't know how to feel about that either. "I forgot I had the tuxes stored in the car somewhere."

"You just have tuxes lying around in your car?" Quill said incredulously. 

"A whole wardrobe, really. Pepper insisted after that one time that I showed up to a press conference with sandals and socks." Tony said, smiling at the memory.

"Mr. Stark." the shop-owner returned, and Quill could see from his name tag that he was called Sean. "The clothes you requested."

"Thanks." Tony said quickly, taking the tux before he headed off into the changing room. That left Quill alone with Sean, who was eyeing him weirdly.

Quill was about to tell him off when the shop-owner left, only to return in a few seconds with another tux. "Here." he said, handing it out to Quill.

"Uh, no thanks." Quill said, staring at the tuxedo. There was a price tag on it, but Quill still wasn't too sure how much Earth-money was too much, since he was still used to units. 

"I'm afraid I must insist." he said, pressing the tuxedo into Quill's hands. "Mr. Stark said that he can't have you looking like...that."

Quill frowned. He took the suit and headed into the changing room adjacent to Tony's. He shed his clothes and stared at what Sean had given him. 

There was a white collared shirt with it, along with black slacks and the tux itself. He put those on and stared at the golden necktie, unsure exactly of how to put it on. He put it around his neck and started tying it, only to end up with something that was definitely wrong. He heard a loud knock on his door, followed by Tony saying, "We don't have all day, Star-Lord."

"Just need to, uh. Tie the tie." Quill said, undoing the knot before giving it another go. Without warning, his door swung open and Quill had to back into the furthest wall of the changing room to avoid being hit. Tony walked in, and before Quill could process what was happening, Tony crossed the distance in between them to glare at Quill.

Tony smacked his hands away from the tie and went to work on them himself. Quill was definitely blushing now, though he blamed that completely on Tony being right up in his personal space, though he didn't mind as much. Fortunately, Tony was fixated on the tie, and before he knew it, Tony stepped away. "There." Tony said, admiring his work.

Quill looked at Tony instead of his own tie, mind still reeling from how fast everything had happened. Tony was wearing a similar outfit, the only difference being the deep red tie he was wearing. He'd never really seen Tony dress up like this often, and he whistled appreciatively. "Wow. You look good."

He mentally hit himself for that as soon as it left his mouth. Tony didn't seem to mind, grinning in response before giving Quill a once-over. "You don't look so bad yourself, Star-Lord. Now come on, we don't have time to be ogling."

Before Quill could really process what Tony just said, his armor popped back into place before he flew out of the store. It took Quill a second to catch up, glad that his own helmet would cover how flustered he probably looked.

* * *

Tony's first meeting was at some fancy restaurant, which was honestly thrilling at first. Tony introduced him and Quill charmed the old important looking people (though Tony's subtle glares in his direction told him he shouldn't talk too much). He hadn't been to this restaurant before, so when the waiters started giving them their food, he was so ready to dig in. He stopped when he saw that literally nobody else was eating and was instead talking about politics and space-politics, and Tony was effortlessly answering their inquiries and concerns. Still though, nobody was eating. Normally he would've gone ahead and eaten anyway, but he really didn't want to mess anything up for Tony. 

Tony seemed to notice his inner turmoil a few minutes into the meeting. The corner of his mouth twitched into a smile before he took a bite of his food. As if on cue, a few others started eating their food too, and Quill sent Tony a silent thank you before finally digging in.

It was that ratatouille dish from the Ratatouille, and Quill savored every bite until he finished it under a minute later. Quill frowned, only now realizing that the portions were way too small to be anything but a half-assed attempt at snacks. He looked at everyone else's plate and noticed that most of them were done eating, though a lot of them had barely touched their food. He was beginning to wonder if he could flag a waiter and order some more when he felt the mood in the room go south. He realized Tony's mouth was pressed into a thin line, and the old woman sitting across him was saying something loudly.

"As nice as your intentions are, Mr. Stark, we cannot be expected to trust you with Earth's reputation in something this important."

Quill was dumbfounded. He looked around the table expecting to see and hear some contradictions, but most of them were nodding. Tony himself kept his face neutral, though Quill could see that Tony was restraining himself. 

"I have to agree." The man to Quill's left said. "Despite your recent heroics, your background in war might become a problem in the future. We appreciate what you've done so far, but different people may be the better choice."

Quill's mouth was definitely hanging now, and he looked to Tony. His heart sank as he saw defeat in Tony's eyes, as if Tony was about to agree. 

Before Tony could open his mouth, Quill slammed his hand on the table and rose up, shocking everyone into looking at him. He could see Tony shooting him a warning glare, but he ignored it. "Tony Stark is one of the few people on Earth who have actually made a dent into all of this nasty shit you've got going on. You think keeping him away from space is the best choice, but let me tell you. As a man who's actually lived in space most of his life, it'll be your worst mistake."

He let that hang in the silence before he continued. "Sure maybe he has a fucked up past, but everything he's done after has made up for that. Hell, he's already redeemed himself just by taking the mantle of superhero all those years ago! And maybe you didn't know, but Tony's already a hero, even outside of Earth. He's the best chance Earth has got, if you want to raise Earth up to intergalactic standards."

They were all staring at him now, and a few of them were looking away. He looked at Tony, and frowned when he saw that Tony's face was unreadable.

"We're leaving." Quill announced loudly. "Hopefully next time we see each other, you won't be such dipshits."

Tony grabbed him and dragged him out of the room, shutting the door behind them. "What the hell happened to don't do anything stupid?" Tony said, his voice tightly wound.

"They were being stupid!" Quill said, letting Tony steer him outside of the restaurant. "What did you expect me to do, shut up and let you take it?"

"They're right, you know." Tony said, a hint of bitterness in his tone. "Earth's 'Merchant of Death' probably shouldn't be leading this whole space thing. I can continue helping from the sidelines sure, but I can't-"

"Shut up, because you're being stupid now." Quill said, planting his hands firmly on Tony's shoulders. He was looking directly into Tony's eyes, and he was looking back, his expression uncertain of what was happening. "You're not going to be bad for Earth because of your past. You're the best choice  _because_ of it. They look at your past and see a shitstain they need to get rid of, but you're the best possible symbol for Earth! Despite the shitty start, you still climb up and make something more out of yourself. That's what Earth has to be, and that's why you're the best thing that's happened to this planet."

Tony stared at him, opened his mouth, before closing it as if he decided against arguing. 

"So shut up with all this 'Maybe I don't deserve it' nonsense, because the only thing we should be arguing about is whether they deserve you." Quill said, simmering down now that he's gotten his main point across. He's all too aware of Tony's eyes anchored onto his, listening to every word as if he doesn't want to believe it but he does anyway because it's Quill who's saying it. 

"I...Thank you." Tony said, his whole body language changing as if a weight had been lifted from his chest. He was smiling now, though it seemed a bit too fragile for Quill's taste. "For everything."

Quill grinned and Tony was grinning too, and he was overwhelmed with a rush of affection for the man in front of him. Before he could think, he pulled Tony in for a bear hug, and almost immediately Tony was hugging back. When they pulled away a few seconds later, Tony was looking at him with something he couldn't quite identify, as if Tony wasn't quite sure what he was feeling. The way he was looking at Quill made his stomach leap, and before anything else happened, he turned away from Tony and faced the street full of stores beside them.

"My turn now!" Quill said, acting like the last few seconds weren't strange at all. "And since we ended that meeting a little earlier than planned, we can take our time with this one."

"Fine." Tony said without missing a beat. "I swear to god though, if we end up at another amusement park I will shoot you again."

Quill laughed, and just like that everything was back to normal, with the two of them bantering back and forth without anything complicated underneath.

He wasn't sure how to feel about that.

* * *

Okay, maybe he was lying when he kept telling himself he wasn't sure how he felt about  _that_ , but he mostly blamed Tony for it.

Mostly.

They were at the only store in the city that was still selling cassettes, and Quill was trying them all out on his Walkman. Tony was just standing by in the corner tapping away on his phone, until Quill called him over to listen to the cassettes with him. Whenever Tony would actually like some of the music they were listening to (which were mostly Metallica or classic Disney songs), Quill would add it to the cart for them to listen to whenever Tony had his spells down in the workshop. They must've been on the tenth one when Tony had to excuse himself for a phone call (Quill jeered at him loudly enough to embarrass him in front of the two other people in the whole store). 

Quill was skimming the Disney section when he found exactly what he was looking for. He'd been looking for this ever since they started having movie marathons back in the Compound way back then, but he'd never had the chance to actually follow up on buying it. He popped it into his Walkman and listened to it, a wide goofy grin on his face. He looked over to Tony, who was talking animatedly on the phone, complete with hand signals and gestures the person he was talking to would never see. His mind drifted over to a few minutes ago, in front of the restaurant, and his smile got even worse. 

So he was pretty sure he knew what he was feeling. He was by no means a stranger to romance and he'd been through the awkward crush phase more times than he could count, so this wasn't supposed to be new to him. He's not sure when he started feeling this way about Tony, though he knew when he realized it. He remembered frantically searching for Tony through the suddenly burning ship, and finding him in the middle of what looked like a war zone. Quill had to give Tony his helmet since he couldn't breathe, ignoring his own lungs screaming in protest as smoke started to fill into his lungs. He was pretty sure Tony wasn't dead at the time, though he was too afraid to check. He lugged Tony around the whole way until they were back to the ship, and he didn't realize he was frantically telling Tony everything would be alright until Mantis had to calm him down. Even Rocket knew better than to poke fun at him while he was waiting for Tony to wake up. He remembered seeing Tony sit up and immediately hugging him because Quill was pretty sure he had been crying, plus he really wanted to hug Tony.

He felt that again whenever he so much as thought about Tony, minus the near-death experience sadness bits and more of the hugging and everything that came after.

Tony pocketed his phone, and walked back to Quill, a smile on his face. "So what're we listening to now?" 

His hand was out for Quill to hand him an earbud, but Quill just took off his earbuds and took the cassette out. "You'll see later." he said, placing the cassette carefully into the cart with the rest of its brethren. "Plus, don't we have to go somewhere else now?"

Tony didn't seem to think much of it and let Quill buy the bag of cassettes. 

"Are we just gonna keep lugging this around?" Quill said, frowning at the bag.

"Nah. They'll deliver it." Tony said, his phone out again as he tapped away.

"Huh. I didn't know they delivered." Quill said, walking out with Tony.

"Normally, they don't." Tony said, smiling at that. 

Quill smiled back, feeling his very non-platonic feels again. At this rate, he'd be surprised if Tony didn't know.

* * *

 

They were in Wakanda now, and Quill was watching how Tony was fascinated with the way the false scenery melted away and revealed the hidden kingdom. Though Tony told him the kingdom wasn't that hidden anymore, since they started reaching out and introducing themselves to the world. Tony also begrudgingly loved talking about Wakanda, since most of their technology was in it's own league compared to Tony's, though that didn't mean Tony was falling behind. Tony watching the environment melt away as they entered Wakanda was like watching a child see an amusement park for the first time, completely enamored by the bright lights and giant attractions. A lot of thoughts were running around his head at the time, though Quill had his priorities straight.

He took out his phone and took a picture, cursing when he realized that it wasn't silent. Tony turned around too late, frowning as Quill considered his new prize. "That's for the car ride this morning." 

"You are such a child." Tony said, smiling.

The few other Wakandan soldiers that were escorting them didn't seem to pay attention to the two, though Quill could swear one of them was rolling her eyes at Quill.

"So what're we doing here, by the way?" Quill asked, changing the topic.

"To see a few old friends." Tony said, his smile dropping a little. "The old Avengers. We've brokered a new Accords that should be better for us, added a few liberties that should make it feel less like a prison sentence than anything."

"So you're going to sign those today?" Quill asked. Tony rarely approached the topic of the Avengers, and whenever he did, he would say only whatever he needed to say before changing the topic. 

"Ideally." Tony said. "I've already talked it over with Cap and the rest who didn't approve. I'm not big on optimism but it should be work out."

"I'm sure it will." Quill said, his voice softening. "Compared to everything else you've done the past few days, this should be a cakewalk."

Tony's smile widened, and he went back to looking out the window. They were landing now, and he could see a few familiar faces among the people outside the Royal Palace. 

Once they stepped out, a Bruce Banner was among the first to welcome them. Tony seemed friendly enough to him, and that was enough for Quill to like him too. Plus, Tony told him that he could sometimes turn into a green rage monster, so that was a big plus.

"Bruce." Tony said, hugging Bruce quickly before pulling away. "It's been awhile."

"I would've visited, but they told me you were off the planet." Bruce said, obviously expecting a story.

"I'll tell you all about it later. Plus I've got some videos." Tony said.

Next was Rhodey and Peter Parker, who got here a few minutes before they did.

"Hey, To-" Rhodey began, only to be interrupted by Peter who practically bounced his way in front of Tony.

"Mr. Stark!" Peter said, looking like he was about to hug Tony before he recoiled and put his hand out for a handshake instead. Tony rolled his eyes and wrapped Peter into a brief hug, ruffling his hair as he pulled away. Peter looked to Quill next, and Quill held his fist out and they fist-bumped. "Mr. Star-Lord!"

"When the hell did you get him to call you that?" Tony said, frowning at Quill.

"You call him that all the time." Peter pointed out, and Quill just nodded.

Tony looked past Peter and started talking to Rhodey, with Peter watching the two of them talk and chiming in every now and again. Quill looked around and saw Captain America with two people he didn't quite remember. He walked over to them, eager to make friends with Tony's team before the day was over.

"Hey, Peter Quill, though you may know me as Star-Lord." Quill said, preening as he introduced himself to Steve Rogers. He extended his hand out for a handshake, which Steve accepted firmly. 

"Steve Rogers. I've heard all about you." he said, looking at him as if he was sizing him up. "You here with Tony?"

"Yep." Quill said. "Have you guys just been living here the whole time...?"

"Not really." Steve said. "We've been coming back here every now and again to check on a few friends, but other than that, no."

"Cool, cool." Quill said, realizing he was running out of things to talk about. He couldn't exactly bring up the weird Civil War they had or the literal fight Steve had with Tony in Siberia, since he wasn't there and Tony seemed to be neutral with it, at best. "I see you have your shield back."

"It was a gift from Tony awhile back." Steve said, taking the shield out of it's place from his back. He remembered seeing it in Tony's workshop the first time he was on Earth, and Quill had a hell of a time throwing it around until Tony locked it away to prevent further damage to the workshop. 

"Hey, Cap." he heard, and suddenly Tony was beside him. "It's been awhile. Sam. Bucky."

"Tony." Steve said, looking pleasantly surprised. Sam waved and Bucky looked a little wary of Tony, until he saw that Tony wasn't at all bloodthirsty for revenge. "It's been awhile."

"Well, I've been busy with space things." Tony said. Despite the arrogant tone it had, Steve just shook his head and laughed.

"So I've been told." Steve said, and Tony was smiling warmly now. 

He heard a distant voice call for them, in a way that reminded him of parents calling their children back inside. 

"That's us." Tony said, looking at Quill while everybody else started heading inside. "You gonna join us?"

"I dunno, isn't this whole thing Avengers-only?" Quill said.

"You're cool enough to join our club, Star-Lord." Tony said, motioning for him to come along. "Come on, the sooner we get this over with the sooner we can go home."

The inside of the palace was massive, to say the least. It almost reminded him of the Sovereign's palace, with how golden and yellow most of the things were.

There were a lot of other people he didn't recognize, and most of them had flags pinned somewhere on their person or on the table they were occupying. Each table had a tiny little box on top of it, and Tony told him that they were translators so that everything would go smoothly. The Avengers had their own table in the main hall, and Quill was suddenly thrown back into school when his biggest worry was which table would he sit in. Tony solved that by calling him over, giving him a seat beside him. Quill barely remembered most of them from Titan and Tony's stories, though he did remember Thor.

"Star-Lord!" Thor said loudly, startling Bruce and Natasha, who were sitting on either side of him. "It has been too long!"

"Hey buddy." Quill said. No matter what Rocket or the others said, he still didn't see anything in Thor. Nothing at all. 

"Friends!" Thor said even louder, gesturing to Quill. "This is the Other Peter I was talking about."

"I'm the other Peter?" Quill said, frowning. Peter Parker gave him an apologetic smile.

Thor proceeded to introduce him to everyone, with Tony shooting down any attempts Quill made at embellishing himself. He couldn't keep track of most of their names, though he made sure to make his first impression as Star-Lord stick.

Once everybody had settled in, things finally got down to business, with everyone talking politics and people reading political papers and contracts, and Quill couldn't really keep track. There were some moments were it looked like someone was about to contest a point in the contract, though Tony would explain and that seemed to be enough to pacify them. The most noteworthy thing that happened was that Captain America was the first to agree, and Quill was pretty sure Tony was about to fall out of his chair. Steve had gone on and on about why he had disagreed with the Accords in the first place, but ultimately relenting with the new changes made to it, but putting emphasis on their need to serve the people. If the revised Accords was the best and safest way for everybody involved, then the Accords would be the path they take.

After that, everyone had signed the Accords, and Quill wondered whether all these super-people in one room signing on a piece of paper would be a world-changing event. With the way Tony was trying to suppress a grin, Quill guessed it might as well have been.

Once all the politicians and other people started to leave, Quill was talking with Tony about what they were going to do next (Tony was going to see if he could push that back for another day), when a brunette woman and a red robot looking thing with a crystal on his head approached them. After seeing Tony's shocked expression, Quill pieced together that this must have been Wanda Maximoff and Vision, the people Tony felt the most guilty over after the whole Infinity Gauntlet business.

"Hello, Tony." Wanda said, smiling brightly at him. 

"Wanda. Vision." he said, nodding to each of them. "Wow. How long have you been walking around?"

"Only recently." Vision said, in a voice that sounded a lot like an English Butler. "We wanted to thank you."

"For everything, Tony." Wanda said, as soon as she saw Tony's expression go south. "You saved Viz, and we don't know how we can ever repay you."

"Forgive me, maybe." Tony said, his voice small. "About the whole...exploding your Mind Stone-slash-heart."

"There is nothing to forgive, Mr. Stark." Vision said, smiling at him. "I had already made my peace with death when Thanos started to invade. It would've been a necessary sacrifice, one way or the other."

"We never blamed you, Tony." Wanda said, watching Tony just nod vacantly as they were talking. "It was the right call, and this is the best case scenario, given what we have."

"Right." Tony said, obviously struggling to stop himself from saying something destructive. "Right." he repeated.

Quill placed a hand on Tony's back and steered Tony away, who seemed to still be reeling from the events of today. They said their goodbyes and they were back on a Wakandan ship to drop them off back at the Compound. Tony was looking out into the evening sky, lost in his own thoughts.

"What's up?" Quill said, seating himself beside Tony again.

That seemed to jolt Tony out of his brainstorming session, and Tony was looking at Quill. Tony looked like he was constipated, complete with the furrowed eyebrows and the failed attempt at a smile.

"Everything went right today." Quill said, after Tony didn't say anything. "Maybe that meeting with whoever at that restaurant was a bust, but they will come around later. Especially now that you have re-assembling the Avengers under your belt now."

"Yeah." Tony said, relaxing a bit. "It's just...I can't believe it, I guess. It's not exactly all my problems solved, but this should be huge. But...I can't believe it."

"Do you trust me?" Quill said earnestly.

"Of course I do." Tony replied immediately, as if he was almost offended Quill had to ask.

"Then believe me when I say that you can breath now. Today's another victory for Tony Stark, and you can celebrate!" Quill said, mind buzzing with a few ideas they could do once they got back. "Okay?"

"Okay." Tony said, finally smiling. He chuckled a bit, as if he was finally letting the day sink in. "I believe you."

"Good." Quill said, grinning back. He loved making Tony smile, he thought it was the least he could do to repay Tony for everything he's done. 

"You know, you're on a roll today." Tony said. "Thanks for coming along with me. It means a lot."

Tony looked like he wanted to say more but couldn't, so Quill placed a firm hand atop his, giving it a little squeeze. "Right back at you."

Tony gave him a look before breaking into laughter. "That doesn't even make any sense."

"Shut up." Quill said, pulling away. "You know what I mean."

"I think I do." Tony said, smiling fondly when their eyes met again.

What few doubts he had now were thrown out the window, except for one that kept clinging onto the back of his mind like a leech. Maybe Tony didn't feel the same way, or maybe he did, but he didn't have anything to lose by trying.

* * *

 

"You know, this wasn't what I meant when I said we should finally relax." Quill said, watching in fascination as Tony was somehow dismantling the robot he'd accidentally created the first night when the Guardians came back to the Compound for the second time. Apparently, the robot had free reign over the workshop the whole time they were gone, and it had trashed almost everything. Tony disabled it gracefully with a simple repulsor blast before dismantling it, muttering something about accidentally giving it sentience on top of pizza cutters for hands. Quill sat down on the table Tony was using (despite his protests) as he went to work.

"Yeah well, this is me relaxing." Tony said without looking up. 

"It's also 10pm. You could be sleeping." Quill said. "I've heard that's more relaxing."

"Never heard of it."

"Tony." Quill said, groaning at how difficult Tony was being.

Tony finally looked up, not seeing the robot twitching despite being taken apart multiple times. "Fine, Star-Lord. What do you wanna do?"

Quill fished out the cassette he was looking for from the bag and held his Walkman out to Tony. "Let's just listen to some tunes or something."

"That sounds boring." Tony said, frowning. "I could be dismantling an accidentally sentient...tiny monstrosity."

Quill didn't respond to that, instead holding out an earbud for Tony. He rolled his eyes and took it, sitting on the table with Quill.

He pressed play on the Walkman, grinning as he watched Tony's face go from confused, to realization, and elation as he realized what song this was. "Oh my god, it's that Wall-E song! I've been trying to look for this ages ago but I kept forgetting to."

Quill said nothing, just smiling as Tony started to enjoy the song. 

 _It only takes a moment_  
_For your eyes to meet and then_  
_Your heart knows in a moment_  
_You will never be alone again_

Quill was singing along now, though he barely knew the lyrics and was fumbling along most of the time. Tony didn't seem to mind, even going as far as to join him in butchering the lyrics through the laughter.  
  
_He held me for an instant_  
_But his arms felt safe and strong_  
_It only takes a moment_  
_To be loved a whole life long_

Quill was outright belting the woman's part of the song, his voice cracking in all the wrong places. Tony was laughing in earnest now, leaning on Quill as he did. That quieted Quill and suddenly all he could hear was his heartbeat (god he hoped Tony couldn't hear his heart right now that would be weird).

 _And that is all_  
_That love's about_

Tony was looking at him, confused that Quill suddenly stopped, and his cheeks flushed red with all the laughter. Their eyes met and Quill found himself wondering when he fell for Tony, and whether it was over the course of the time they spent together or just a single moment. Tony wasn't laughing anymore, though he was just smiling up at Quill as if they were sharing the world's best inside joke.

 _And we'll recall_  
_When time runs out_

He's not sure who kissed the other first, though all he was sure of is that he wanted to do it again. When he pulled away and saw Tony looking at him with the same look Quill must have had, he felt his heart prepare to burst out of his chest. Quill was sure it was Tony who pulled him in this time, probably because Quill was taking too long figuring things out, though you won't see him complaining.

 _That it only took a moment_  
_To be loved a whole life long._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOO finally! I would've had this released yesterday but I ended up scrapping the whole thing and rewriting it from the ground up into what you just read. Hopefully I've done well, because I'm very proud of this chapter, almost as proud as I was when i pumped out chapter 6. Also they only used a snippet of the song in wall-e, but they were listening to this full version here:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8XJX19jjtI
> 
> Also as for where this series is gonna go, I might have a few more chapters left, but I can't promise anything since most of the stuff I write is on the fly sooooo :D


	8. Define Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Quill dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanna take a moment to say thank you for all the kind comments everyone's been leaving! I tried replying to everyone at first, but I kept forgetting to so again, thanks for all the kind criticisms and comments about my work :)  
> Also this is a pretty short one compared to everything else, but that's because I just wanted to pump out a purely fluff part before moving on to more things hehe

Tony's proud to be able to say that he didn't nearly kill Quill the second time he woke up next to him. He almost did, but he didn't, and that's all that mattered.

The curtains in his room automatically drew back, as it always did when he woke up, gradually letting light filter into the room. He sat up slowly and remembered Quill and making their way to Tony's room. They didn't go any farther than kissing, since Quill didn't seem to want to escalate things just yet, which was perfectly fine with Tony. Quill was the first to go to sleep, dragging Tony down to the bed with him. He still had an arm on Tony's chest, and the ghost of a smile on his face.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty." Tony said, flinching at how weak his nickname game was early in the morning. He poked Quill in the face, and he responded by mumbling something before pulling Tony closer. He was tempted to just stop fighting it and go back to sleep, since there were worst things than snuggling, but he had things to do. Or he was sure he had things to do. He pushed against Quill until he had enough room to wriggle free, eliciting a groan from Quill.

"It's three in the morning." Quill said, sitting up. His eyes were unfocused, though when he finally remembered where he was, he started grinning. 

"Actually, it's almost twelve." FRIDAY said, and that certainly woke Tony up.

"Please don't tell me I was supposed to feed hungry orphans hours ago." Tony said, moving so that he was sitting on the side of the bed.

"Not this time, boss." FRIDAY said. "You did have a meeting for earlier, but it appears that certain events yesterday made them cancel."

Tony was confused until Quill wrapped him in a hug from behind. "Sorry." he mumbled into his ear. Tony wrinkled his nose. He'd have to figure out a cure for morning breath sooner or later.

"I'm pretty sure you're not." Tony said, relaxing into the hug. 

"No." Quill admitted. 

"Which works out, since I'm still not regretting any of it." Tony said, placing a hand over Quill's as it rested over the arc reactor. 

 

"Good." Quill said, and Tony could practically hear his smile through the way he said it. 

Tony allowed himself to lean back into Quill, letting out a content sigh as he did. Quill pressed a brief kiss to Tony's cheek before going in for a kiss on the lips, though Tony turned his head away just in time. "Nope. Morning kisses are non-negotiable until after you brush your teeth." 

Quill opted to nuzzle into Tony instead, and hearing Quill's voice this close sent a shiver down through his spine. "C'mon, just this once." Quill pressed a kiss into Tony's neck. "Please?"

Tony sighed, before he turned back to face Quill. He pulled Quill down for a brief kiss, though the latter decided to let it linger a second longer than was comfortable. When they pulled apart, Quill had a dopey grin to match Tony's deadpan glare. "Disgusting." Tony said, and Quill laughed in response.

* * *

 

"Now that we're dating," Quill said, an all too familiar look on his face as they walked to the living room together. "Does that mean I get to try on your armor? I could even settle for your older models, or even just the boots, honestly."

"No." Tony said immediately, and Quill began to pout. They had an intense staring match of Tony frowning at him and Quill giving him puppy dog eyes. Eventually, someone had to back down. "Fine. Maybe. I'm not promising anything just yet."

Quill immediately broke into a shit-eating grin, and Tony could only roll his eyes. If he was smiling, then that was between the two of them.

As soon as they entered the living room, Rocket turned to look at them, with the remains of the microwave at his feet. Tony had finally gotten him to uninstall most of the 'explosive upgrades' Rocket had done over the duration of his stay, though Rocket kept telling him he was making a mistake the whole time. "Finally!" Rocket said, dropping something that suspiciously looked like a bomb carelessly onto the floor. "We were beginning to think you guys were never coming out."

"I am Groot." Groot chimed in, before turning his attention back to the TV. He was watching a nature documentary on redwood trees.

"What?" Tony said, narrowing his eyes at Groot. "That seemed way too oddly specific."

Drax walked into the room with a bowl of unpopped popcorn, munching on the whole thing as if it was perfectly normal. The first time he saw Drax eating it that way, he felt personally attacked, and the fiftieth time wasn't any easier. "It's true. We were wondering about how long you two would be in bed together."

Quill opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it and shut his mouth instead. This repeated a few more times before Tony finally said, "Wait, you guys know?"

"Know what? That you two have been boning?" Rocket said, standing up from the mess of parts on the floor. "If it was supposed to be secret, you guys are terrible at it."

"It's barely even been a day-" Quill began, and he got a quizzical look in return.

"Wait, you mean you just got together yesterday?" Rocket said, obviously not believing him. "You've been pining for each other forever ago."

"It's true." Mantis added helpfully. Tony hadn't noticed her until now, and it looked like she was mimicking Drax's 'invisibility' techniques off behind the TV. "We all thought you started boning back on the ship."

"Okay can you not say boning again?" Tony said, frowning. "Hearing it from you is like hearing my grandma cuss."

"Okay." Mantis said, nodding eagerly. "We all thought you started fucking-"

"Sweet Christ."

"-back on the ship." Mantis finished, oblivious to Tony's reaction.

"Are we done talking about your sex life?" Rocket asked, the microwave finally rebuilt at his feet. Though Tony could've sworn it had a few dozen more buttons than it used to. "Because I'm done hearing about it."

"Good." Quill said, sitting down next to Groot. After that, everyone began to follow suit, with Rocket using the microwave as a chair while he wrestled Groot for the remote, Drax and Mantis sitting by the couch, and finally, Tony sitting down to Quill's right. 

"Though if we're being honest, I thought it was pretty obvious you two got together back on the ship." Rocket said, a few minutes after he changed the channel away from National Geographic. "'Tony! Tony! Oh my God he's bleeding everywhere!'" Rocket said, his voice a lot higher as he mocked Quill. "Mantis had to put you to sleep because you were a wreck."

Tony saw Quill turn red, and he couldn't help but smile despite how gruesome the whole ordeal was at the time. "Screw you." Quill said, earning a laugh from Rocket.

* * *

 

 

The Guardians attended their first charity gala a few days later. It was more of a formality than anything, and Tony would've been fine to go it alone though Quill insisted.

"I've never been to a fancy Earth party before!" Quill said, as if that was all the excuse he needed. How he got the rest of the Guardians to agree to it, he didn't know.

They had only arrived when Tony lost nearly all of them. Rocket disappeared into the crowd with Groot, and Tony really wished he remembered to tell Rocket that he couldn't steal any prosthetics. Drax made it his mission to hassle every waiter into giving them all the food they had, while Mantis started talking to everybody she literally bumped into.

Thankfully, Quill stayed beside him, even when random old people started talking about business with him. Tony made a mental note to finally let him fly one of his suits soon to make it up to him.

"So this is supposed to be a charity ball thing, right?" Quill said, a shrimp cocktail making its way to his mouth. "So there's going to be dancing?"

Tony smiled a real smile, something Quill was getting increasingly good at drawing out of him these days. "Of course there is."

"Have I ever told you I'm a good dancer?" Quill said, smirking.

"Only a hundred times, unfortunately." Tony said, his eyes scanning the crowd for anyone to watch out for. "Though I've only ever seen you flop at DDR."

"That game is rigged, I swear." Quill grumbled. "So. Dancing?"

Tony turned to look at Quill, seeing a knowing grin on his face. It was the same look he got whenever he had ideas like 'sentient doritos' or 'automatic popcorn'. Tony laughed, shaking his head at it all. "Yes. Dancing."

"Save a dance for me?" Quill said, nudging him in the side.

"I don't usually dance at these things." Tony said, ready to say a more elaborate no until he saw Quill's expression falter fractionally. "But for you, fine."

Quill spent the rest of the night with a goofy grin on his face, and Tony couldn't help but be infected with the pure unbridled joy. Tony went through the motions, entertaining people and answering whatever concerns they had about his company, space, or whatever else, hoping he could burn through them fast enough to get it all over with. His thoughts kept drifting to their dance later (how could it not? Quill was right there and Tony was pretty sure he caught him practicing out of the corner of his eye once). He knew it'd mean outing them to the world and sealing the deal, and Tony found that he didn't care about that too much. Quill didn't, and Tony figured dating a half-alien would be one of the better things to dominate the media with.

He was considering just starting the dancing part of the night when a familiar face walked up to him.

"Steve." Tony said, mildly surprised. Quill beside him seemed excited to see the good Captain, shaking his hand. "Didn't expect to see you here."

"Thought it'd be good for PR." Steve said, smiling at him. "I'm here with Bucky too, though your raccoon friend stole him away to talk."

 

Tony was about to tell Steve that that was probably not a good idea, but Steve spoke first. "I just wanted to clear the air. About everything."

"Siberia?" was all Tony said, his smile a little strained, though he hoped it didn't show. 

"Yeah." Steve said. "Everything, actually."

"Listen, Cap." Tony said, his hand reaching into his pocket for something. "I don't want to have to apologize and hear you apologize every time we meet."

Steve frowned, though he saw the expression on Tony's face and that relaxed him a little. Tony fished out a slightly damaged flip-phone from his pocket, handing it out to Steve. "Plus, since we're on the same team again, hopefully I won't be calling you on an ancient artifact the next time I need help."

Steve took the phone, looking from it to Tony with a smile on his face. "Thank you, Tony."

"Anytime, Cap." Tony said, and he knew he meant it.

Maybe Siberia wasn't completely behind them, but Tony was ready to start moving forward anyway.

Tony pretended he couldn't see Quill proudly smiling at him.

* * *

 

"God, I was pretty sure these people were never going to start dancing." Quill said, relaxing as he heard music begin to play. 

Tony took Quill by the hand and began to lead him to the center of the room, not paying attention to the people parting around them and giving them odd looks.

It was a slow dance, so they pressed close to each other, with Tony resting one hand on Quill's waist, and Quill placing his hand on Tony's back. Their free hands clasped together as they swayed to the music, with Quill grinning triumphantly at him, as if this was some competition that he was already winning.

"Told you I could dance." Quill said, and Tony rolled his eyes.

"Any preschooler can dance to a slow dance." Tony said.

"Well, not any preschooler gets to dance with Tony Stark." Quill said, smiling fondly.

"I'll give you that." Tony said, returning the smile.

They continued to dance like that, just enjoying the feel of their proximity and their bodies swaying to the music as one. Quill subtly fought him for control over the dance, a fight that Tony gave up willingly since he knew Quill was too stubborn to do anything but win anyways.

"I know we've been doing a good job of not talking about what this whole dance thing really means," Quill said, and Tony could see just a hint of worry behind the smile. "But I just want to make sure we're on the same page before I do anything stupid, like kiss you in front of everybody."

"As far as stupid things go, kissing me is probably one of your better ideas." Tony said, attempting to smooth over his doubt with another smile. 

"Not too sure about that." Quill said, laughing as the doubt began to clear. "Pretty sure my sentient doritos idea was still pretty good."

Tony wanted to roll his eyes, but he decided kissing Quill to shut him up would be more fun. When they pulled apart, Quill had this dazed look that was focused on Tony, a look that still did things to Tony's heart. 

He's not sure if people were staring, or if people were paying attention to them at all. He's not sure when the two of them started dancing to their own beat, or when Quill kissed Tony a fifth time that night.

The only thing Tony was sure of was that he was with Quill, and that was all that mattered.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title's based on the ost that was playing in Wall-E when Wall-E and EVE were flying around and robot kissing it was still cute many years later. Also i'm running out of applicable Wall-E OST's for chapter title's so i'm probably switching back to whatever works


	9. Tomorrow with You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quill and Tony plan for what comes next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took forever, more on that at the after-chapter notes

"I swear, I'm only asking because there's no one else." Tony said, and Quill was getting tired of his boyfriend calling him to apologize for the sudden change of plans. "Rhodey's not available, and frankly, he says he's not sure why I keep calling him to do this since he has things to do-"

"I know, I know." Quill said, hoping he could soothe Tony's frayed nerves if he stayed calm himself. Even though calm was the farthest thing from the truth right now. "Don't worry bout it, Starlight."

"Starlight." Tony repeated, as he always did whenever Quill used the nickname. Tony didn't seem to dislike the nickname however, so Quill kept at it. "Okay, fine. Just call me if you need help-"

Quill scoffed. "As if. I've got this whole thing under control."

"...Okay." Tony said, though Quill already knew he'd be calling later to check on him anyway. "I won't be long. Maybe just a few hours at most. Okay, maybe more than that, but I'll try to be done as soon as I can."

"Trust me." Quill said, hoping he sounded more confident than he was letting on. "By the end of the day, you'll be wondering why you even worried."

"Okay." Tony said, a little less worried now. "Okay. Hopefully I'll be home before Rocket ends up cooking again."

"God help us if you don't." Quill replied, dropping the call before Tony could get another worried question in.

He'd be fine. Quill thought, eyes focusing on the sleek black door in front of him. He'd been standing here for the better part of thirty minutes, partly due to Tony worrying over everything, and partly because Quill let him, since Quill wasn't too eager to go in just yet. He remembered the grim and anxious look Tony had right before he asked Quill for this one favor, though Quill was quick to placate his boyfriend and assure him he could sacrifice one day if it meant one less thing for Tony to worry about.

Before Quill could think about another reason to delay the inevitable, the door swung open, and Pepper Potts was smiling at him. "You must be Peter Quill."

"Yes, ma'am." Quill immediately said, straightening out his body. He suddenly felt like an idiot, until Pepper started laughing. She held the door open to let him in.

"'Ma'am'? Did Tony tell you to call me that?" she said, walking across the room and to her desk. She sat down on it and pushed aside a few files and a laptop, before gesturing Quill to sit down. "I swear, the last Peter he sent my way was calling me 'Madam' for weeks. Pepper or Ms. Potts will be fine."

"Right." Quill said, sitting down on the chair. He realized he was still acting a little stiff and tried to force himself to relax, which must have been a sight to see since Pepper was looking at him oddly. "Sorry, just the first job jitters, I think."

Pepper was smart enough to see through the lie, but kind enough to not call him out on it. "It's only going to be for one day." she said. "Honestly, as endearing as it is for Tony to worry, he needs to take a step back and breath."

"Yeah." Quill said, smiling at the memory of the phone call just minutes ago. "I'd tell him to dial it down a bit, but he just keeps bringing up the time Rocket almost blew up the house with a doormat."

Pepper's jaw dropped. "I thought he was kidding when he had to cancel a meeting for that."

"I think Tony kept a mat or two around his workshop so he could figure out how Rocket did it." Quill said, remembering how Tony practically threw himself at Quill to stop him from accidentally stepping on it back down in the workshop.

"Please don't tell me that was around a few days ago." Pepper said, looking faint.

"Uh...I think so?" Quill said, smiling uneasily. "Why?"

"Tony dropped off an emergency measure in the form of a doormat." Pepper said, eyes drifting over to the doormat Quill had to walk over. "I thought he was just being funny, especially since he said he also hid a suit of armor for me somewhere in here-"

"No way!" Quill said, eyes widening. "He got  you an Iron Man suit?"

"That's what he said." Pepper said, not as enthusiastic about it as Quill was. "I'm not even sure where it is anymore, it was disguised as a pair of heels or something when he gave it to me."

"Did you try it out?" Quill said, and he noticed Pepper trying not to smile.

"No. What, Tony doesn't let you play with the suits?" Pepper asked.

"No." Quill said, spirits dampening. "Tried to sneak into one of his older ones, but that one didn't move. To be fair it did look extremely ancient, like he fished it out of a junkyard. I was pretty sure Tony was about to kick me out of bed when I eventually told him."

Quill realized what he said and tried to backpedal, stammering apologies and excuses, but Pepper simply held up a hand and he fell silent.

"You don't have to worry about it being weird, if that's what this is." Pepper said, and Quill wasn't too comfortable with how easy it was to read him. "Me and Tony have already made our peace with it. We were going different ways. You two aren't. To be honest, I'm glad he found someone like you."

"I'm glad he found me too." Quill said automatically, and he felt himself flush with embarrassment again. Pepper looked like she was about to say something, but her phone started going off. She took a quick look at it and stood up, swinging a handbag onto her shoulders before walking towards the door.

"I have a board meeting in five, this shouldn't take too long."

Quill just stood up when she walked out of the room, and he practically had to run to catch up with her. He kept up with her pace for awhile, before he finally asked, "Hey, do you think I could try out the suit Tony gave you?"

Pepper laughed, and Quill wasn't sure if that was a yes or a no.

* * *

 

"Oh thank God." Quill said as soon as he walked into the Compound living room. He threw his jacket haphazardly onto the floor and flopped onto the couch, not paying much attention to whoever else was there. He shimmied his shoes off and dropped them by the couch, sighing contentedly as he buried his face into the pillows. "That took way too long."

He let himself catch his breath for a few seconds before he sat up, realizing that no one else was there. "Tony? Are you home yet?" he called out, and he waited for a few seconds before he stood back up, despite his legs' protest. "Because after all of that you owe me like, twenty suits."

He frowned, and he was about to ask FRIDAY if anyone was home when he heard something faint coming from somewhere upstairs. He climbed up and the music got louder, and it became obvious that someone was playing the piano. Which was surprising, since he didn't even know they had a piano, though with the myriad of rooms this place had it'd be more surprising if it didn't. He found the source of it through an open doorway, and he froze by it.

Tony was angled away from him, and he was playing something mellow and beautiful on one of those giant fancy pianos you see at equally fancy restaurants. Quill wasn't sure how long he was standing there, just watching and listening to Tony play. Quill didn't know the first thing when it came to pianos, but he could feel the beauty in each note Tony played and the underlying memories tied into the song. Quill could've stood there for hours just listening to him, and it would've been a good few hours, until Tony started to sing.

"Try to remember," Tony began, singing in a way Quill has never heard. Usually when Tony knows Quill is waiting for him while he showered, Tony would sing something Quill knew and they'd sing carelessly for a few minutes until Tony was done. Tony singing then was just Tony humoring him, but the way Tony was singing now was just... "The kind of September. When grass was green-"

Tony's voice faltered, though his hands kept playing the next few notes. Quill took this moment to slide into the seat comfortably next to him, and Tony didn't even flinch at his sudden appearance.

"Hey." Quill said softly, as if he didn't want to ruin the melody Tony was creating. "I didn't know you played the piano."

"Just one of my many talents." Tony said automatically. He seemed to realize what he just did, since he smiled bitterly before adding, "One of the things my mom got me into when I was a kid. Didn't have much of a reason to play in the last few decades until Peter asked me for lessons when he found this room."

"Can't believe you still remember it." Quill said, awestruck. 

Tony smiled, as he always did whenever Quill would compliment him. Tony made a big deal out of deflecting most of his compliments, but thanks to Quill's undying stubbornness, Tony eventually learned to just shut up and take it. "Yeah well. It's kinda hard to forget."

"Yeah?"

"It was the last song I heard my mom play." Tony said, smiling bitterly at the memory. The emotions bled into the melody, and Quill wondered how often Tony heard this song. "She was playing it before she left. Before she died. I never really...talked to either of them properly before they left. Fair to say this song never really left me, either."

Quill was leaning lightly against Tony now, and he leaned into him almost immediately. "I can't remember the rest of the lyrics though. Not the way she sang it, at least." Tony said, sighing. 

"For what it's worth, it's pretty good. Your piano, your singing." Quill said, and Tony looked at him just in time to see him grin. "Your ass."

Tony rolled his eyes, laughing. He stopped playing and sat up straight, looking at Quill with nothing but fondness in his eyes. Quill felt his heart beat faster, as if every beat was trying to say 'mine, mine, mine'. 

"It was the last time I saw them, unless you count the funeral awhile later." Tony said. Quill heard a quiet sadness in his voice, which made him instinctively reach for Tony's hand. His hand immediately found its way in Quill's, and he wanted to comment on how easily they fit together, but he could do more of that later. "I'm over it, mostly. It just gets me thinking sometimes."

Quill wanted to say uh-oh with how grim Tony's expression suddenly became, but he kept quiet. "I've been thinking. This is like, your third trip back on Earth, and you've already been here for a month."

"An amazing month." Quill corrected, making Tony smile. 

"An amazing month." Tony repeated. "But we both know you're going to leave soon, and I can't exactly ask you to stay."

"And I can't ask you to come with us." Quill said. He'd been dreading this conversation for awhile now, especially with the rest of the team talking about space. Earth was home now, but their ship and the wide open galaxies were home too. He could only assume the same for Tony. "Long distance sucks."

Tony laughed at that. "Yeah, and especially considering you'll literally be galaxies away that's like, double the suckage."

"Yeah, plus you haven't figured out how to communicate with us yet-" Quill trailed off, noticing Tony's smug smile. "No way!"

"I've already hooked your ship up to my network with the updated comms. It's what I was doing while you were gone." 

They were both grinning now, but even that didn't last too long. He felt his heart tighten, and he could only assume Tony was feeling the same way. The compromise was good, but it still felt like it wasn't enough. "I've been thinking. I haven't actually talked about it with anyone yet-" Quill began, pausing when he could hear himself talk. "Myself, even. I've been thinking about it but I never really thought about it?"

Tony stared at him. "Okay, fine fine, redo. I haven't thought about it  _too much_." Quill said, and Tony seemed satisfied with that. "But you might be wrong."

Tony raised an eyebrow, and Quill held up his hand before he could say anything else. He felt his heart hammering in his chest, and he wasn't sure where he was going this but it felt right. "Maybe you could ask me to stay."

Tony opened his mouth and shut it, as if he was trying to figure out what to say. Quill continued, "It's just...I don't know. Is it too early to be thinking about retirement? Can you even retire as a legendary space outlaw? As far as retirement plans go Earth isn't the worst thing, and maybe I could just be an Avenger too! I don't really have powers but you do have that blonde chick with tasers and an archer for fuck's sake-"

"You can't mean that." Tony said, his voice suddenly too quiet. "You'd be giving up too much."

Quill wanted to argue with that, and suddenly something clicked in his head and he stopped himself. Tony was talking as if he'd already had this conversation before, and in a way, he kind of did. He remembered the awkward lapse of conversation with Pepper, and what she said. 

"And you might be wrong too." Tony said, smiling. "Maybe you could ask me to go with you."

"Wow." was all Quill could say. His head was spinning. This conversation wasn't going according to his barely-a-plan.

"I don't have to superhero anymore, really." Tony said. "Not on Earth at least. We've got all sorts of freaks showing up. You know we have a Captain Marvel now? Pretty sure we're getting an Ant-woman too. I could go."

Quill found himself focusing on Tony, and he was relieved to see that Tony was just as unsure and vulnerable as he was.

"Or we could do both." Quill said, grinning widely. "Like we're doing now, but more official and planned out!"

"In that case let me do the planning." Tony said, deadpan. "Last time we let you plan we almost died twice."

"But also, thanks to my planning, we didn't die." Quill retorted, and Tony just rolled his eyes.

"So we're doing both then?"

"Yeah." Quill said, feeling the tension drain out of him. He felt exhausted now, and he could see in Tony's eyes that he was too. "I guess we are."

"Also if you call Natasha blonde taser chick, I'm sure you'll end up in a hospital. Just saying." Tony said, his voice brimming with hope and excitement at what would come next.

"I'd like to see her try." Quill said, scoffing.

"No, you don't." Tony said, laughing. "Even I'm afraid of her. I'm sure Thor is, too."

"Shut up and let me gloat." Quill said, and Tony laughed even harder.

Tony pulled him into a kiss, and Quill eagerly responded by pressing Tony against him and kissing back. Quill was sure smiling in the middle of a kiss was bad form, but Tony didn't seem to mind.

In the back of his mind, Quill knew this was probably going to go horribly wrong especially considering how unplanned this was. He still thought it was going to go horribly wrong even a year later, when Tony had to talk him through a nightmare he thought he'd finally escaped. He knew it was definitely going wrong when they somehow ended up stranded and alone on a deserted planet two years after that, even though Tony was already halfway done with building a spaceship with nothing but the weird bio luminescent trees and rocks around him. He couldn't help but be paranoid when he got down on one knee to propose four years after that, even though Tony had already tackled him down to the ground before he could get the ring out of his pocket. 

Now though, Quill was considering if he should backpedal out of this doomed-to-fail plan, but he couldn't remember what he was worrying about.

Tony was distracting, that way.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFsB56DYIiE&t=22s  
> ^ the reference to the piano song Tony plays :)  
> Also i'd like to thank everybody who stayed with me the whole time I worked on this, and I wanna say that all your support (even if you just clicked on this to read the whole thing or pressed kudos or left a comment) means a lot to me! I'm not lying when I say that i have a stupid shit-eating grin whenever i get a notification that I got kudos or a comment on my work
> 
> although I wish I could keep writing, its just not gonna work out, as you can see from the large gap between this chapter and the last. unfortunately college doesn't leave much room for writing gay fanfiction. I tried to wrap it all up(not much to wrap up honestly, other than what comes next), and it probably seems rushed, but I wanted to go for an open ending? though i guess i did kind of outline a few key events in the future buT ANYWAYS
> 
> thanks for being on this adventure with me, and i hope you all enjoyed :)


End file.
